


The Endless Chase Caper

by MadHatter13



Category: Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: (no worse than in canon), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Slash, Ballroom Dancing, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, Canon Rewrite, Crime Fighting, Dorks in Love, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Flirting, Gen, Heist, Hypothermia, Lesbian Character, M/M, Major Character Injury, Male-Female Friendship, Memory Loss, Mental Health Issues, Pining, Podfic Welcome, Secret Relationship, Spies & Secret Agents, Trauma, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2020-11-26 23:23:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20938487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadHatter13/pseuds/MadHatter13
Summary: ‘Hold the elevator, please!’Julia reflexively pressed the “hold” button, and the elevator jolted slightly as the new passenger stepped on. ‘Phew, thanks, it’s quite a way up –‘Their eyes met, and the words died, as Julia was suddenly brought face to face with Carmen Sandiego.-After a chance encounter in an elevator, and with Agent Devineaux's ongoing memory problems, season 2 plays out a little differently.





	1. The Long Way Up

**Author's Note:**

> This multichapter fic was actually mostly finished when season 2 dropped, but I liked the new episodes too much not to include the new canon. As a result, what will be most changed is ACMEs actions and impact on the story. Also, most of the AU capers were already written before I watched season 2, so miraculously there is a totally different New Zealand mission in this one ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
Let me know if I need to tag for something.

It goes a little something like this:

Agent Devineaux lost his ID when the kidnappers apprehended him. Not his ACME badge, that would have been easy enough to replace. No, it was his French passport that ended up in a gutter somewhere. It was eventually found by a determined ACME operative. But it was in such bad condition after being exposed to the various unmentionable contents of said gutter, that it needed to be replaced.

Chase was still unconscious, and had been for four days. So Julia was taking care of the matter on his behalf.

Was she doing it to be nice? It wasn‘t as if they got on very well as partners. He could do it himself if – _when _he woke up. If she was honest, it was because she feelt guilty for not being able to stop V.I.L.E. from kidnapping him and doing, well, whatever it was that they did. Not that she had been anywhere near him when it happened. But if she had not been so convinced of the relative innocence of their enemy, things might have gone differently.

_Carmen Sandiego._

The halls of the civil offices were long, and echoing, and gave her far too much time to think in circles.

_That_ would teach her to trust criminals. Or, not trust. Believe she understood their motives, at least. If Carmen Sandiego was part of V.I.L.E. (which the Chief believed her to be) and she was anything like the rest of that shadowy organization (which the Chief was convinced of) then she did evil simply out of pettiness and greed. Yet her pattern had seemed so predictable to Julia. Never any harm to civilians, and most of her loot ended up being returned to its rightful owners. That was without mentioning her tendency to announce her crimes beforehand. It had always seemed to Julia that her public appearances were for the benefit of someone other than law enforcement, or ACME, although she could not put her finger on why she had that impression.

She was ping-ponged through the offices of the building, from one desk to another. The famously inept processes of bureaucracy worked at cross-purposes to retrieve what should have been a relatively easy piece of documentation to obtain – at least for a former agent of Interpol. Finally some pencil pusher sent her from the lobby all the way to the top floor.

She took the elevator. It was a tall building.

It was empty, at least when she got in. This wasn‘t the boon she‘d hoped for. With no other passengers to focus on, the previous thoughts stayed right where they were. Even a cramped elevator would have been preferable. At least then she could have been annoyed at the other passengers instead of wallowing in self-doubt. She would have spent less time feeling stupid for being so terribly gullible, just because she had met her face to face _once_ and she had talked to Julia like she was worth listening to –

The elevator stopped on the next floor, and an elderly man got on, leaning on a cane, and pressed the button for the next floor. He nodded amiably to Julia, who nodded back, and then went right back to berating herself –

‘Hold the elevator, please!’

Julia reflexively pressed the “hold” button, and the elevator jolted slightly as the new passenger stepped on. ‘Phew, thanks, it’s quite a way up –‘

Their eyes met, and the words died, as Julia was suddenly brought face to face with Carmen Sandiego.

Julia’s hand instantly went for the inside of her coat for – her badge? Her hologram pen? Her cuffs? Whatever it was, Carmen’s hand went for the pocket of her jeans in that same moment, as she prepared to –

Between them, the elderly man coughed gently into one hand.

The door closed behind Carme – behind _Sandiego_, preventing her escape, but putting Julia in the pickle of putting a civilian at risk. Their eyes met again and they communicated in a moment’s wordless understanding, “_We can have our all-out brawl in an elevator _after _the senior citizen has left_.”

Carefully, they both stopped reaching for whatever weapon they had on hand. The elevator travelled upwards at a snail-like pace. On the tinny speakers played an old recording of _The Girl From Ipanema._

Why was she here? Was she here to kidnap Julia? To go through her to finally take out Devineaux? Force her to give up information on ACME? Some other impossible reason? What could Julia do but wait? ACME agents didn’t carry firearms – at least she and Devineaux didn’t, but she has her doubts as to others in the organization. She had a taser, although that was not an ideal weapon to subdue a criminal in a confined space. Maybe she could –

The elevator slowed to a ponderous halt, and the door went “ding!”

With the speed of a geriatric tortoise, the old man left. Even slower, the door closed again.

Before the elevator even started moving, they had turned on each other, hands reaching again. Eyes locked, neither moved a muscle.

‘Ms. Sandiego,’ accused Julia.

‘Jules,’ agreed Carmen. Then she winced, and Julia noticed for the first time that one hand was in a cast. She wasn’t wearing her trademark coat and hat, just that red hoodie and a pair of worn jeans. Her hair was up, too, but messy, and she looked tired.

‘Come to silence me?’ Dared Julia, not entirely sure where her bravado came from. Perhaps she was just angry.

Carmen’s brow furrowed. ‘What?’

‘You tried to take out my partner, and he was in the ICU for a good while after you were done with him. I can only imagine what you have in store for me.’ Her fingers grazed the holograph pen and she wished the damn thing had a recording button. Or at least an option to send a visual of her without immediately alerting everyone within a hundred foot radius by producing a full-sized hologram of an adult woman.

‘Wait – is the Inspector okay? Is he _still _in the hospital?’

Everyone knew Carmen Sandiego was a genius, a chameleon, a champion actor – but she sounded legitimately concerned, just then.

Julia blinked. ‘What.’ For some reason that was not on the list of things she had expected to hear.

‘He didn’t look too bad when I found him, but I guess that machine they used on him could have done something – ‘

‘He is in a coma, and has been ever since we retrieved him. What do you mean “when you found him”?’ Asked Julia, getting stuck on details in a way her partner normally had a tendency to.

‘That’s why I was there – wait, did you think _I_ was the one who kidnapped him?’ Julia got the impression that Sandiego had been jolted enough by so randomly running into her that she had not managed to pull on the mask of the suave thief in time. A wince told her this was probably exacerbated by what appear to be bruised ribs, by the way Sandiego was cringing.

‘You must have!’ Julia could feel her earlier anger coming out sideways, now that everything seems to be going backwards. Carmen – _Miss Sandiego _– should be the one on the offensive right now, not her. ‘The Chief saw you there, why else would you be there but because you are part of V.I.L.E.!’

‘I’m not -!’ Sandiego winced again, and leaned against the side of the elevator. ‘Fine, I guess I can see why you’d come to that conclusion. I’m impressed that you’ve found out about V.I.L.E., at least.’

‘You’re claiming you are _not _one of them?’ Demanded Julia, letting that last comment slide. This _had _to be a gamble on her part, to make Julia let her guard down. Well, she wouldn’t, not this time.

‘Seems you’ve already made up your mind about that,’ quipped Sandiego. ‘But if you’re inclined to change it, _no_, I am not on V.I.L.E.’s side. I’ve actively been trying to take them down for the last year. They came after the Inspector because they thought he was assisting me, not chasing me.’ She grinned in a way much more fitting to a person of international intrigue. ‘I couldn’t let that stand, could I? The Inspector, for all his faults, has the right idea in wanting to apprehend evildoers.’

Julia didn’t say anything, because for just another second she did not want to admit that it made far more sense than what she had been trying to convince herself of all afternoon.

‘It’s what I do,’ said Carmen Sandiego, now with a confident smirk. ‘I steal back what V.I.L.E. steals from others.’

‘Why should I trust that you are telling the truth?’ Said Julia, appearing calmer than she really was. It had been... scary, seeing Devineaux laid out in the hospital like that. Despite her best instincts as a detective, she wanted someone to blame.

Carmen’s grin faltered. ‘Guess you just have my word for it. Unless the Inspector is able to corroborate my story. I somehow doubt it. He was pretty well out of it when I reached him. And hell knows what that machine they used did to his head.’

The elevator went “ding!” again, startling them both, and the doors opened into the hallway of the top floor. They both stared at each other a moment, then Julia sighed, and adjusted her jacket.

‘You’re not gonna try to arrest me?’ Said Carmen, sounding surprised.

‘There is not much point. I am on leave, currently. And no doubt would you disappear without a trace if I tried.’ She glanced back. ‘But don’t count on being so lucky next time.’

‘Roger that,’ said Carmen distractedly, and Julia realized that she had completely given up on trying to think of her by last name, if that was even her real name in the first place.

‘Humor me one last answer, though,’ she said, stepped out of the elevator.

‘What’s the question?’

‘Why do _you_ go after V.I.L.E.?’

Carmen grinned so that all her teeth showed. ‘Haven’t you heard? Set a thief, to catch a thief.’

The elevator door closed.

Julia sighed, and tried to swallow the butterflies in her stomach, and went to find the nearest bureaucrat.


	2. The Little Mermaid Caper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected sighting near a museum in Odense brings Julia and her partner to the Butter Queendom.

The next sighting of Carmen Sandiego was in Rio de Janeiro a couple days later. Julia wasn’t there, however, because at the same time her partner woke up. His memory was full of gaps, but the doctors were optimistic that it would return in time. So the Chief elected to keep him within A.C.M.E.’s reach, should he remember anything that could assist in identifying V.I.L.E. operatives or their plans. Chief did make a suggestion that Julia could be assigned a new partner, since her current one would not be up to speed for a while, but Julia carefully ignored that suggestion. She was certain she could conceal her conviction of Sandiego’s innocence from Devineaux, but doubted she could pull of the same thing with a seasoned A.C.M.E. agent. Considering what Ms. Sandiego had revealed – or confirmed, really – about her role in the fight against V.I.L.E., she should have doubled down on convincing the Chief that she was a potential ally. But until she could present evidence as to this fact, going beneath A.C.M.E.’s radar might become necessary.

And so they were put on a small assignment that no-one really expected to yield significant results.

The location was Odense, Denmark – a country that was home to great quantities of butter, open-faced sandwiches, and too many cyclists to count.

And notably in this case, the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, author of fairytales. “Notably”, because two days before, a certain phantom in red had been picked out attending the Odense museum, where some of Andersen’s early manuscripts would be on display in only two days’ time. Julia had the dreadful suspicion that they received the assignment because no-one at ACME considered the manuscripts especially valuable or important. Even with a red hat sighting involved.

‘Andersen is considered one of the best writers of fairytales in his time,’ she said, opening the car door and letting her partner emerge from the passenger’s seat. ‘Surely you have heard of at least one of his stories? The Little Match Girl, or The Snow Queen, or the Little Mermaid –‘

‘I saw the Disney movie,’ said Devineaux sourly. ‘That should be enough for me, Agent Argent.’

‘Actually, sir, the animated film differs from the original story quite a bit – sir, are you _sure _you should be back to work so early?’ This was at Devineaux miscalculating the distance between the doorknob and his hand, and punching the glass door to the museum. The doctors had said his fine motor control would not return to normal for another month at the least, after whatever that machine had done to his head. That was without mentioning the way he’d frequently forget what he was saying in the middle of a sentence. He seemed to have some quite large gaps in his memory going back as far as his childhood – never mind his kidnapping, of which he remembered nothing. It was all pretty worrying, actually.

The man glared balefully at the door handle, then pushed the door open. ‘I was stuck in that damn hospital for two weeks, Agent Argent! Any longer and I’d have gone mad. Besides, you think I’d let you pursue _la femme rouge _by yourself?’

Ah... That was _one _area where Devineaux’s memory seemed to have remained picture-perfect.

‘If you say so, sir,’ said Julia, as they walked inside. Really the Chief only let him back into the field because he had tried to break out of his hospital room in increasingly dangerous ways. The 7th and final time, he had tried to climb down the brick wall using a set of plastic cutlery from the cafeteria. From a 4th floor window.

Devineaux grunted, then said, ‘Well, go on. You were saying something about mermaids.’

Julia blinked at this unexpected development. ‘You... want me to _keep _talking, sir?’

Devineaux huffed. ‘What? Like you aren’t about to explode from whatever it is you’ve found out this time.’ He didn’t look her in the eye, but she got the feeling he was trying to hide his embarrassment. She decided not to look this gift horse in the mouth and began anew.

‘Well, to start with, the Little Mermaid is given legs by the sea witch so she can find the Prince again – that part was right. But she doesn’t just lose her voice. She also has to suffer terrible pain any time she walks, and the witch tells her that if she does not manage to make the Prince fall in love with her, her heart will break and she will turn into sea foam.’

There was a brief pause, as Agent Devineaux processed what his ears were hearing, and then he looked down at her in disbelief. ‘You said this was a _children’s tale_!’

‘No sir, I said it was a fairy tale. Those are often quite nasty, I’m afraid.’

‘Okay, but she gets the Prince, right? Disney got that much right, didn’t it?’ There is an almost pleading tone to his voice.

Julia almost felt bad letting him down. ‘No, she doesn’t. Sorry, sir. He marries someone else and she dies of a broken heart.’ There was more to the story, of course, but she decided not to try his patience with the details.

Agent Devineaux's outraged voice rang out through the museum hall. ‘What’s wrong with a happy ending?! _Sacre bleu, _Adderson sounds like a real cheerful guy.’

‘Andersen, sir. And supposedly the story was autobiographical.’

Devineaux snorted. ‘What, did the girl he sat next to on the bus turn down a date or something?’

‘I don’t think they had buses in 1830s Denmark, sir. And no, evidence from his personal letters indicate that he was in love with a man who went on to marry someone else, and The Little Mermaid was his way to express how he felt unable to tell the world about their love in a homophobic society.’

Devineaux pondered this. ‘Going through people’s letters after they’re dead always creeps me out. How am I supposed to be able to trust anyone when some archivist weirdo might come along in 80 years and go through my Facebook IMs!’

‘You have a Facebook, sir?’ Asked Julia in disbelief. They were interrupted from further tomfoolery by the museum curator hurrying over, and the day descended into a blur of looking at security footage, talking to witnesses, and trying to puzzle out what the elusive thief would want with a few fairy tale manuscripts. Knowing what she knew now (if she could trust it) Julia instead tried to figure out what V.I.L.E. would want with them, necessitating Carmen to steal them before the criminal organization could get their hands on them.

The answer, as it turns out, was money. This was revealed to her as she, without Devineaux’s knowledge, camped out in the museum security monitor room overnight. Her partner was in his hotel room, passed out on his meds, which alternately gave him insomnia or knocked him out for a full eleven hours. Not even the museum staff knew she was there. She had come in with the guests in disguise and then stayed behind as the museum closed down.

As much Devineaux’s lucky cat jacket and a baseball cap counted as a disguise. It was very effective, really – she looked so conspicuous that no-one would ever dream she was trying to be discrete.

The details of the heist became apparent when she saw a man in a dashing hat appear as if without warning in the gallery where the manuscripts had been set up. Once she hastily made her way down there, she heard him talking into a communicator, not even bothering to lower his voice. ‘-should fetch a nice price with our contact in Germany. Dear me, who has enough money to waste that they are willing to pay a full six figures for a bunch of mouldy notebooks?’ 

Quite a few people, as it turned out, although Julia did not compile a full list of them until a few days after the break-in, which she dutifully sent to both A.C.M.E. and Interpol. But now she was more preoccupied with how to stop this thief with hattitude from making off with his loot, and trying not to cringe at how he might damage the delicate old paper in his carelessness.

‘Freeze! Interpol!’ She still used that because a) nobody had heard of A.C.M.E. and b) that was kind of supposed to be the point. You couldn’t easily stay a secret organization if your enemies knew who you were. The man glanced up, saw her stun-gun, which was aimed at him, and took off with a swiftness that shouldn’t have been so unexpected. Julia legged it after him. He seemed to be heading for the rooftop, his briefcase of manuscripts bouncing against his leg as he ran, making Julia want to smack him for his carelessness and pray the people in the restoration lab wouldn’t blame her. Never get in the way of someone who knows how to use a bonefolder, her collage girlfriend used to say.

The wind went out of him on the way up the many flights of stairs, but he had a significant lead on her, so she only reached him when she got out on roof. Finally she got close enough to stun him, and he went down twitching. But his accomplice was there, and he knocked the stun gun out of her hands and grabbed the briefcase, apparently intending to leave the hat-wearer behind. Julia couldn’t get a clear look at him, nor get close enough to stun him as well. He moved far too quickly and gracefully for her to even get close. But it didn’t matter because just when she thought she had lost him on the edge of the roof, a glider rose up over the roof top, and the man got a boot to the face. He went sprawling and the briefcase skittered from his grasp. Julia secured it before hurrying over to the hat-wearer to cuff him, knowing she could leave the other one to Ms. Sandiego.

The woman herself alighted on the roof, her glider disappearing into a backpack with speed. The thief - a man with a French accent - backed away slowly, keeping his eye on her. He sneered, ‘And here I thought you’d become a teacher’s pet, Black Sheep. Where is your shadow?’ He actually squinted into the shadows then, as if he expected someone to jump out at him.

‘It’s just Carmen these days, Le Chevre.’ She was slowly backing him into a corner, and he noticed, because he pulled out one of those electric stun batons that A.C.M.E. had warned their agents about.

‘You’re not sending me the same way as Crackle!’ He said brandishing the baton wildly. ‘Let us leave or you’ll regret it!’

‘I didn’t do anything to him, V.I.L.E. did. And if anyone will be feeling regret, it’s you.’

‘And why is that?’

The ginger who had been sneaking up on him got him right on the temple with a set of brass knuckles. ‘Cause she’s distracting you, ya iidjit!’ The man crumpled to the ground, and the red-headed girl grinned, hands on her hips. ‘Great job, team!’

‘I don’t think we actually did a whole lot on this one,’ said Ms. Sandiego, although she grinned too. ‘Seems like you had it covered, Jules,’

Julia, who had finished cuffing the hat-wearing thief, replied drily, ‘Well, I can’t fly, so I suppose I should thank you for taking care of the other one.’

The blunt-instrument wielding Bostonian looked nervous. ‘Hey, isn’t she, you know, a cop?’ She hissed to her accomplice.

‘More like a secret agent,’ shrugged Carmen – Julia mentally corrected herself – _Ms. Sandiego_.

‘That’s supposed to make me feel _better?’ _

‘What do you say Jules? Thinking of taking us in?’ Asked the woman, as if she were teasing, but Julia knew the question was serious.

She replied, ‘I already have my hands full. Not to mention I already have the manuscripts.’

‘Hey, we need those!’ Said the red-head.

‘No we don’t, this way they’ll be returned to the museum,’ her boss said placatingly. ‘Besides, this was a small job. We know V.I.L.E. has bigger things planned we need to get ready for.’

The girl kicked her feet. ‘What a waste a’ time. We should’ave gone with Shadowsan on the Senegal job.’ Julia hadn’t heard that name before, and wondered just how many accomplices the red spectre had. According to A.C.M.E. intel, this red-head usually came in a set of two, but they didn't know their names, nor did they know of any other people on Ms. Sandiego’s crew. ‘What do they want with a bunch of old books anyway?’

‘They are historically significant!’ Said Julia, unable to contain her indignant tone. She normally wasn’t so forceful, but this had been an odd night, and meeting Carmen again was putting her on edge. Mentally, she gave up on not thinking of her by first name. It was impossible to fight.

Carmen shrugged. ‘I always liked the Little Mermaid,’ she said, kneeling down and tying Le Chevre’s hands behind his back. ‘She gets to escape her restrictive home through the help of an outsider and explore the world.’ Julia noticed that the cast she wore last time they met was gone, and that her ribs didn’t seem to be bothering her, and felt a strange relief.

‘She’s in pain every day she’s on land,’ said Julia. ‘Not to mention she ends up dying.’

Carmen shrugged again. ‘I never said it would be easy. There’s a lot of things worth sacrificing for a whole new world.’

‘That’s a different movie, Carm,’ said the girl, and helped her haul the unconscious man up between the two of them.

‘I wouldn’t know, I haven’t seen a lot of modern movies.’

The girl dropped her burden, whacking Le Chevre’s head on the ground. ‘_You haven’t seen Aladdin? _The most classic thief’s tale _ever_?’ Player, cancel everything! We have approximately thirty years of pop culture to catch up on!’

Julia wondered who “Player” was and how he was listening, but assumed it must be through the earpieces they both wore. That made for at least four people on Carmen’s side so far. She raised an eyebrow at Carmen as they prepared to leave with the one called Le Chevre.

‘We’ll take care of him,’ said Carmen. ‘As formidable as you are, I doubt your boss will believe you took out two armed men with just one stun gun. And we don’t want this guy to tell anyone you let us go.’ She winked, and Julia tried to muster a response, but she could feel her ears blushing, and it was interfering with her ability to speak without sounding like an idiot. She nodded briskly, and they took off.

Later, before local authorities could hand the behatted bandit over to A.C.M.E., he somehow escaped custody, almost immediately. But to tell the truth, Julia didn’t expect anything else. V.I.L.E. had a way of cleaning up after itself like that. No wonder Chief had taken so long just to confirm that they even _existed_.

She was commended for retrieving the manuscripts when they gave their status report to the Chief, and it did make her proud. Devineaux avoided her gaze, but didn’t talk down her accomplishment. She guessed that he was ashamed of the fact that he was asleep when it happened. Julia decided to extend a sliver of goodwill and claimed that he was on “mission control” when the Chief inquired of his whereabouts during the arrest. He looked pitifully relieved, but they don’t talk about it afterwards.

The paper conservators fussed and looked ready to cry with relief when she handed in the manuscripts and they turned out to be undamaged. There was only thing Julia could think of when she saw the Little Mermaid, back under glass in the museum exhibit. It was that if Carmen could identify with the mermaid herself, Julia, to her own chagrin, could identify rather too well with her author.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let the one among us who would not fall head over heels for a dashing thief in SECONDS cast the first stone.


	3. The Perishing Parrots Caper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julia thankfully avoids a "there is only one bed" scenario with her coworker, and there are two unexpected conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The unexpected season 2 NZ caper double I promised

Their room in the hotel next to Myer’s Park in Auckland, New Zealand was just that: _one_ room. It wasn’t the first time they had had to share, but thankfully there were two beds. Julia didn’t think she had the energy to argue with the hotel clerk had they mistakenly signed them up for a single. She was coming out of the bathroom after taking a shower, and Devineaux had already put up what she could never resist thinking of as a “conspiracy wall”. One feature was a blurred security cam capture of the elusive woman in red, caught near the Kākāpō Recovery Centre in Invergill. They had been too late, this time. 

‘Please explain to me why _la femme rouge_ would want to kidnap two dozen parrots,’ her partner grumbled, staring at the scant evidence in front of him.

‘They would fetch a significant price on the black market, sir. And I doubt that it was her who stole them –‘

‘Yes, yes,’ said Devineaux, waving a hand dismissively. ‘Something, something, V.I.L.E., I get it. Why would they be expensive? Are they delicious? Do people use them in traditional medicine, or something?’

‘Not that I know off, but the kākāpō are endemic to New Zealand, and critically endangered. Only 153 of them in the world. It would be a real blow to the recovery of the species if they lost just a few birds.’ The actual number had been twenty-eight birds, taken from the Recovery Centre in the dead of night. The park rangers didn’t notice a thing, until they found the empty cages. When they had reviewed the security cam footage there had been, at the very edge of the frame, the suggestion of cages being loaded into a truck.

Devineaux grunted. ‘I guess poachers can always find someone to pay them.’

A.C.M.E. intel had traced a truck going all the way from the south island of New Zealand, to Auckland on the north island, where they guessed the birds would be loaded onto a ship bound for their eventual place of sale. The two agents had witness testimony placing the driver, a gaunt man in a nondescript uniform, at the harbour the day before, but no sight of the truck. Despite Devineaux appearing unimpressed with the crime they had been sent to investigate, Julia was pretty sure he hoped as much as her that this was not a dead end.

She walked over to the balcony to open the door – the room was stuffy – but a glance out the window caused her to walk right into the glass door instead and bump her head. ‘Ow!’

Devineaux looked up at her with a frown. She resisted the urge to say she had seen him do plenty of more stupid things in the last week alone, and muttered a dismissal. But the figure on the park bench outside caught her gaze again, and Julia felt her stomach do a flip. 

‘I think I’ll go for take-out,’ she said. ‘I didn’t like the look of the room service menu. Do you want anything?’

‘Sushi.’ He didn’t look away from the conspiracy board, and Julia didn’t even sigh when she noticed he was using a permanent marker on a whiteboard instead of one that could be wiped off. Instead she grabbed her jacket, and hurried downstairs.

The figure on the park bench was still there when she trudged up the hill towards it. The funny thing was, she didn’t look like Carmen Sandiego. There wasn’t red in sight. Instead she wore a blue hoodie and jeans, and a wig styled brown and straight instead of curly and auburn. Julia couldn’t have explained how she had recognized her - but she had.

‘Is this seat taken?’ She asked.

Carmen grinned. ‘Not at all.’

Julia sat, and then wondered what to say, because she hadn’t planned on anything once she found her. She had just assumed she had something to talk about since she so conveniently “happened” to be sitting outside their hotel. Thankfully, Carmen spoke first. 

‘Nice night, this,’ she said, nodding to their surroundings. It _was_ a nice April evening, early autumn in the southern hemisphere, although Julia wasn’t sure she would ever get used to the sight of pine trees and palm trees growing next to each other. On a bench a little further away, an older south-east Asian man was playing a dreamy tune on the accordion. ‘Japan is nice, this time of year, but I’m glad I stopped by.’ It was a carefully casual offer of information regarding her recent activities – ACME hadn’t had any reports of Carmen Sandiego pulling a caper in Japan.

‘Yes,’ said Julia, a touch awkwardly. Then, unable to find anything casual to discuss, she said, ‘Do you know who ordered the birds to be stolen?’

Carmen raised an eyebrow. ‘I thought you knew it was V.I.L.E. – unless you’re back on track to thinking _I_ may have taken them.’

‘If you wanted a pet parrot I think you would settle for just the single one, and from a regular pet store,’ said Julia, making Carmen laugh.

‘I’d rather not get a pet that could potentially outlive me. It seems like a tricky responsibility to balance with being an international woman of mystery.’ She smiled, and it was sharp and not at all pleased. ‘No, VILE has been focusing on “get rich quick” schemes lately, since my interference this last year lost them quite a bit of revenue. They have a buyer lined up – a little club of appallingly rich people who hold dinner parties where they try endangered species as a hobby. And Countess Cleo wants the feathers made into a cape, if she was being serious. I fully expect she is.’

‘They were hunted before,’ Julia pointed out, even though the whole thing turned her stomach. ‘By the indigenous Maori and the colonizers both.’

‘Before they nearly went _extinct_, yes!’ Said Carmen. ‘And not even the Maori are allowed to use the feathers anymore, even though they’re used in some of their cultural treasures, which makes the cape thing really a gross example of cultural appropriation, not to mention the Countess pulling a total Cruella de Ville – ‘ She caught Julia’s smile, stopping mid-way in her tirade. ‘What?’

Julia shrugged, trying to appear casual, and not as if this was just the answer she had been hoping for. ‘I guess it’s good to know we’re on the same side ideologically, if not practically.’ She didn’t add that clearly her Boston friend had succeeded in making her watch Disney movies.

Carmen opened her mouth to answer but seemed to have lost all her words. She recovered, and cleared her throat. ‘We’ll be at the harbour tonight, 4 a.m. It’s the last chance to grab the birds before they’re butchered and sent off in a freezer crate.’

Julia nodded, and Carmen got up without a word or a goodbye. As Julia watched her go, the woman dropped a crumpled bill into the instrument case in front of the accordionist. He nodded his thanks and then did a double take when he recognized the dollar value. But before he could say anything, she had disappeared without a trace.

* * *

Julia wasn’t sure why _now_, but she and Devineaux seemed to be managing to inch themselves towards something like a working partnership. This last mission had worked out pretty well, all things considered. All the birds had been retrieved and returned to their home, for one thing. Thankfully, it had not been difficult to convince her partner to go for a stake-out at the docks. And once they were there, Carmen or one of her associates had provided the necessary breadcrumb tail for the two of them to catch up in time to keep the crates from be loaded onto the ship. 

Devineaux _had_ fallen into the water at one point, when he got too invested in arresting Carmen on top of securing the stolen birds. But that was an improvement, really. At least he didn’t take a car down there with him. And he didn’t spend as much time now, deriding her assertions that Carmen was working separately from V.I.L.E. But on the other hand, if she was on her way towards convincing him of that at least, it did not mean that he was at _all_ deterred from his goal of arresting Carmen. V.I.L.E. might be their opponent was well, but you could not turn Chase Devineaux away with a crowbar, once he had zeroed in on a target. To him, she was still a criminal through and through. 

To be quite frank, he wasn’t exactly _wrong_. If Carmen Sandiego sat very still in an empty room, she might get through an entire day without committing some kind of crime. But the fact was that she used her considerable skill at devilry to prevent others from doing much greater crimes. That was – well, that was enough for Julia. She still was a servant of the law, even when A.C.M.E. had a tendency to dance right along the edge of it. But for all that people said about Hell and good intentions, she trusted Carmen’s intentions more than she did the idea of some iron adherence to the rules.

She contemplated all this while she and Devineaux waited at the airport in Doha for their next plane back to Europe. A.C.M.E. generally travelled in more style than Interpol, but there was only so much you could do with a thirty hour flight from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern. It might be the nicest airport she had ever been to, at that, but a layover was a layover. It was always going to be at least a little boring. So she sat there, thinking, and watching people go by.

Devineaux gave a huge sigh, and leaned back in his chair and stretched out his long legs. ‘How long is it? Another hour?’

‘Hour and a half.’

‘_Merde_.’ He sat up. ‘I’m going to go to the kiosk. Do you want anything?’

‘Mm. Ice tea. Black.’

The man got up, his spine cracking alarmingly as he stretched. He had barely gotten two steps, however, before someone called his name. 

‘Chase! Old buddy, is that you?’ A man emerged from the crowd, and slapped Devineaux on the back in greeting. He was a rather nondescript man, and looked to be his age. He spoke with complete familiarity and, incidentally, the same accent as her partner. But Julia could instantly see from the look in his eye that Devineaux did not know the guy from a hole in the ground.

‘Oh, hey – didn’t expect to run into you here!’ Said her partner, inventing wildly. ‘It’s been a while... Er, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes, must have been, god, ten years? Twelve?’

‘Er – yes...’ He was clearly running out of lies to tell convincingly. Julia decided to come to the rescue. 

She stood up and introduced herself. ‘Hello, I am Julia Argent, his co-worker. And you are..?’

The man shook her hand enthusiastically. ‘Jean Dupont, nice to meet you! I went to _lycée_ with him. Work trip, is it?’

‘Yes, just returning home now.’

‘I’m going home, myself,’ said the man. ‘Me and the wife moved to Bali a couple years ago. So cheap to live there, you know. But amazing we ran into each other here, yes?’

Devineaux managed to nod.

‘Better catch up sometime – that’s what Facebook is for! I’m afraid I have to dash, my flight is boarding in a few minutes.’ He gave Devineaux what was probably supposed to be a conspiratorial nudge. ‘But you know, I thought for sure this lovely young lady was your wife!’ 

Devineaux cringed. 

‘Really.’ Said Julia.

‘Oh, yes! Who knows, maybe I will turn out to be right!’ He gave them both a horrible exaggerated wink. ‘Well, good to see you old friend, keep in touch!’ And then he was gone.

They both stood there feeling rather like people who had been through a small localized hurricane, and stared at the crowd milling around the terminal. Then Devineaux sat down with a grunt, which was really more of a sigh, and Julia did the same.

Then he said, ‘I have _no_ idea who that guy was.’ He looked blankly ahead, not looking concerned, just... resigned.

Oh. ‘Um. Do you think it’s... Regular “not remembering your classmate from high school” forgetfulness or, uh, the other kind?’

‘I don’t know. I mean, I do remember secondary school. Or, I remember that I went to one. I don’t remember a single one of my classmates. I’m pretty sure that’s not normal.’ He paused, and then added, ‘Except Amélie Auger, but that was because she used to glue googly eyes to my shoes during recess every day.’ 

‘I suppose it must be very uncomfortable, to have what feel like strangers come up to you acting as if they know you.’

Devineaux shivered exaggeratedly. ‘_D’accord_! Especially when they go around _implying_ things like that.’

Julia furrowed her brow. ‘Sir?’

He folded his arms across his chest in an attempt to hide his discomfort. ‘I don’t habitually date people almost twenty years younger than me, Agent Argent. I am a _little_ old for you.’

‘And I’m a little too gay,’ said Julia.

Devineaux waved a hand, acknowledging this. ‘Ah, well, I did not want to assume.’

Julia hid a smile. ‘And you date ‘people’, do you, sir?’ Never in a million years had she expected they would ever have this kind of conversation, but somehow the embarrassment whirlwind of a man earlier had managed to make things less uncomfortable.

‘I’m a workaholic, Agent, I don’t date anyone these days. But as per _your_ implication, yes I am bisexual.’

‘I’m pretty sure Agent Holster at the Paris branch is gay. Have we uncovered some questionable hiring procedures?’

‘I have my suspicions about the Chief as well.’ Devineaux shrugged. ‘Ah, well, these James Bond types have all the fun, it’s our turn now.’

Julia smiled, before things became serious again. ‘Don’t you think you should check in once we’re back home, whether there’s something more the doctors can do about your amnesia?’

‘Tch! I have been poked and prodded by far too many lab coats! Either it comes back on its own or it doesn’t, and no great loss there.’ He looked away, following instead with his eyes the inter-terminal train that passed sleek and futuristic overhead. ‘Though I’d give a kidney to know who it was who knocked me out.’

So, Julia realized, would she.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of the writing of this fic, the number of kakapo has risen to just over 200, which is the highest it has been in decades. This is especially impressive since a recent outbreak of aspergillosis threatened to end the species for good. Conservation experts work very hard to repopulate species driven to the brink of extinction by human activity. Hug your local conservationist today!  
Poor Devineaux gets to experience the dreadful occasion of meeting your teenage friends who you have grown VERY much apart from, without even the benefit of nostalgia. Will I make things even more miserable for him as the story progresses? Probably.


	4. The Cold Comfort Caper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two unoffical allies take a trip to the chilly north, and things take an unexpected turn.

The whole scene at Milan Fashion Fest was, uh, _interesting_ to explain to both her partner and the Chief. Julia opted for barefaced honesty – up to a point.

'I had reason to suspect that Carmen Sandiego had the same objectives as ACME,’ she said. ‘Considering her previous M.O. and the situation at hand, I decided to take a risk, to prevent the theft of the Medici dresses, and the continued mind control of the runway models.’

What an absurd yet true statement. She still felt intense, knee-knocking terror whenever she thought back to it. Not the part where they were attacked by (surprisingly strong) supermodels, but the bit when she stood on the runway next to Carmen in front of all those people. ‘Luckily, my instincts turned out to be right, and the dresses were saved.’

The hologram of the Chief considered this. ‘I would not like to give her a single chance to resume her kidnapping streak. Which she very much could have, given that you absconded off with her. And without your partner at that.‘ Devineaux had been detained at the door by security, having looked so obviously out of place at a fashion gala that he raised immediate suspicion. But he’d caught up with the action in time for Julia to throw the dresses at him and tell him to get them to safety (with the help of Ivy and Zack – always nice to put names to faces). Thankfully he hadn’t recognized the two too-young thieves, or he would have made a great deal more fuss about it.

Julia had hurried back down the stairs towards the cellar, unable to leave Carmen to fend off four mind-controlled supermodels (although she could doubtless manage it). But before she had made it back to the cellar, she had been stopped. By an older Japanese man dressed like a samurai. Did all criminals make such questionable sartorial choices?

'I will assist her,’ he’d said, when she tried to push past him. ‘You do not want to draw VILE’s attention too much. If they think you are working together with Carmen Sandiego, they will come for you.’

Then he had turned and raced to help Carmen, while Julia reluctantly took his advice.

She snapped from her reflections when the Chief continued, ‘However, your hunch turned out to be right, Agent Argent, and for that I applaud you. We need intuitive agents in the field. Especially dealing with enemies – and potential allies – who behave in such a contradicting way. On that note, I have your next assignment. It believe is in...’ 

* * *

'_Iceland_?’ Said Agent Devineux for what feels like the 800th time. ‘Why do these criminals not pick warmer islands to do their dark deeds on? How can anyone’s idea of a good time be at the Arctic Circle?’

'Iceland is barely on the edge of the Arctic Circle, sir. And it’s August, it’s not that cold.’

'It is 15 degrees Celsius, and windy!’

Behind them, a local exited he tourist centre. He was wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt, and fanning himself with a newspaper. Devineaux eyed him warily, and Julia sighed. ‘I’m told this is about as good as it gets, sir.’

Devineaux shivered, and pulled the fur-lined hood of his coat over his head. That coat had cost a fortune in the capital, but the sales clerk had assured them it was necessary outerwear in the country of glaciers and the occasional stray polar bear. Since ACME was paying all their expenses, they’d erred on the side of safety.

‘And we haven’t even gotten on the damn glacier yet. Tell me what is so important on a giant ice cube for VILE’s resident mad scientist to want to build a seismometer there –‘ He suddenly stopped, and grabbed Julia’s arm.

‘Ow! What is it?’ She looked up, alarmed and annoyed. But then she saw how his pupils had become pinholes, and he was breathing quickly, his hand on her arm like a vice. ‘Oh dear – hang on, I have your medication somewhere –‘

He hadn’t had an attack for a few weeks now, but they happened sometimes after he woke up in the hospital. The doctors said it was his brain trying to make sense of all the memory gaps. But to Julia they looked more like anxiety attacks, since they usually happened when he’d been obsessing over some detail he couldn’t remember the whole day. Like the name of his pet tortoise in college. It had sent him into an anxious spiral because, he told her, ‘If I can’t remember Étienne, how do I know I’m not forgetting other things? How do know if I have _forgotten_ that I’ve forgotten something?'

‘It is him!’ He choked, staring straight ahead. ‘I remember him now, Agent Argent – him and that _américaine_ bulldog of a woman – they kidnapped me!’ Julia followed his gaze, and felt her stomach fill with dread when her eyes found awfully familiar figure – although he’s said goodbye to the samurai gear by now.

‘He must be on the V.I.L.E. assignment,’ muttered Devineaux, his voice raspy. ‘Just gotta... Follow him, find the glacier station, find whoever made that machine they put on my head, and make them _eat_ it...’

Julia for her part would very much have liked to get answers to several questions as well, but just then a gaggle of German tourists got in the way, and by the time they cleared away, the nameless kidnapper has disappeared. Devineaux growled in frustration. Then he steamed off to bribe a guide to take them up to Svínafell glacier tomorrow instead of in a couple of days, which was the earliest booking they’d been able to get previously. Julia stood there wavering between following her partner, and looking for Carmen – because she was almost certainly here somewhere – to demand an explanation.

* * *

The former won out. She got a chance for an explanation soon enough, though. The two agents had to make their way up the glacier by jeep... Well, if you could still call it a jeep when it had been modified so much you could hardly recognize it as a car. On top of that, it had been outfitted with tank treads instead of tyres. But Carmen Sandiego travelled in style, and arranged a helicopter to drop her and her crew off on the glacier a safe distance away from the research station V.I.L.E. had set up there, so that they could ski the rest of the way.

Julia did not know any of this at the time, when they reached the station and essentially paid their guide to park the jeep in ‘idle’ while they snuck around to look for evidence of a V.I.L.E. presence.

‘I go left, you right,’ her partner said once they reached the perimeter fence.

‘Is it a good idea to split up?’ Asked Julia. ‘It usually gets us in trouble.’

‘And trouble, Agent Argent, gets us to the truth!’

‘Yes, but not always in one piece. I do not like the idea of you running into that man again by yourself.’

Devineaux growled, and brandished a sizable set of bolt cutters he likely meant to use to get through the chain link fence. ‘And if I do, I’ll send him right to la-la land. Off you go! Time is wasting!’

Julia did as he said with some minor grumbling, and edged along the perimeter fence, immensely grateful for her warm coat. It was probably an upsell anyway – how many tourists really made it all the way onto a glacier, after all? – but it was doing a great job keeping her toasty warm.

‘Out for a stroll, Jules?’

She didn’t jump this time. Instead she turned around and levelled a frown at Carmen, who was dressed in a scarlet ski suit, and casually leaning on a red snowboard she had stuck end-up into a drift. Her expression changed from charmingly teasing to uncertain when she saw Julia’s face. ‘Okay – what did I do?’

Julia glanced behind her, at the research station. ‘Don’t you need to break in, or something?’

Carmen shrugged. ‘It’s not time-sensitive, it can wait a few minutes. Besides, this is a remotely-operated station. There are no people here except us.’

'Alright. As long as we are not bound for time, then I’d very much like to know at what point you intended to tell me that one of your accomplices is one of the V.I.L.E. operatives who kidnapped my partner. Or _did_ you ever intend to tell me?’

Carmen’s face didn’t move, which meant she was thinking about what to say next. ‘Um –‘

‘Because working together has up until this point been very successful, and I did it on the basis that you were not part of V.I.L.E. And up until now I have believed you when you said you weren’t. And I would hate for this cooperation to end because I found out you were lying to me.’ The tone of her voice was firm, but level. If not for the look in her eyes, it would be hard to tell that Julia was really very angry.

Carmen hesitated. Then she opened her mouth to reply, but something caught her eye, and in a second she reacted and pushed Julia into a snowdrift, throwing herself on the ground next to her. ‘Surveillance drone!’ She hissed in explanation when Julia lifted her head and spat out a mouthful of snow. ‘Player, I thought you handled them!’

For once, Julia was close enough to her that she could _just_ hear the reply from Carmen’s earpiece. ‘Sorry! But Agent Dumbass tripped some kind of alarm on the other side of the building! They’re programmed to make a thorough re-sweep whenever there’s a potential security breach!’

Carmen cursed in a language Julia couldn’t actually indentify, then locked gazes with Julia. It is only then that she realized they are nearly nose to nose, next to each other on the ground. ‘I’m going in. If you come with me there’s a chance you might get caught – but if you stay out here you _definitely_ will be.’

Julia hesitated, before nodding. They waited for the drone to go around the corner, then climbed the fence. Carmen’s ground crew had apparently disabled the electric section at the top. Then they ran to the entrance and got inside just before another drone passed by. Julia breathed a minute sigh of relief, and turned to look right into the face of her partner’s kidnapper, this time in a black snow suit.

‘I thought you were dealing with the security guards.’ Carmen ground out.

‘Already done.’

Despite herself, Julia asked, ‘Security guards? I thought you said this place was remotely operated.’

'That it is,’ said the man in black. ‘But the Doctor specializes in the kind of artificial intelligence that can deal with most intruders.’ He tossed a disabled fuse onto the floor. ‘Although fighting robots feels a little degrading.’

‘But kidnapping doesn’t?’ It was out before she could stop herself, and actually she wasn’t sure she _would_ have wanted to stop herself, except for the fact that they were in the middle of an infiltration, and this _couldn’t_ be the best possible moment to do this.

The man gave her a searching look, properly recognizing her face through the giant hood of her coat, the scarf, the wooly hat and the ACME mandatory eyewear. ‘Hm.’ Then he turned to Carmen. ‘This is the ACME agent you have been working with?’

‘Yup. Meet Jules.’

‘It’s Agent Argent, thank you,’ said Julia, narrowing her eyes at the man.

‘Of course. Jules, meet Shadowsan.’

‘As relieved I am that you finally have an ally who is _not_ under the age of majority, we should finish the introductions later,’ he said, just a little sardonically in Carmen’s direction.

Carmen sighed. ‘More security to deal with. Yeah, of course. Coming or going, Jules?’

‘Coming,’ said Julia. ‘But if you would not mind clarifying what V.I.L.E.’s plan with this station is on the way?’

‘Tell you what,’ said Carmen as they all made their way down a fluorescently lit white corridor. ‘You tell me what you’ve found out so far, and I’ll fill in the gaps.’

‘We know that V.I.L.E.’s lead scientist-‘

‘Dr. Bellum.’

‘Yes,’ said Julia, although they had not actually known the good doctor’s alias until then, and made a mental note of it. ‘We did find out that she established a research station here, specifically a seismometer, to track the earthquakes in the area. Also potential volcanic eruptions. What we don’t know is to what end – the Icelandic government already keeps a pretty close eye on both should they lead to potential natural disasters.’

‘Air travel,’ said Carmen. As they reached the end of the corridor where it splits in two, her and Shadowsan, without appearing to need to communicate, checked either hallway for cameras or drones before picking the one on the right.

‘I’m sorry?’

Carmen whispered into her ear piece, and the camera further up the hallway briefly experienced some technical difficulties as they passed quickly through. ‘Last time there was a large volcanic eruption in this area just a few years ago, all air travel in Europe as far as Russia was put on hold. Too much ash in the atmosphere made flying dangerous.’

‘Alright,’ says Julia, still not getting the point.

‘The airlines that operated in the area lost a _lot_ of money, and their stock went way down,’ said Carmen. ‘So Doctor Bellum had the bright idea of monitoring the nearby volcanoes in case another eruption happened – which they do every decade or so. And then to sell the information to stock brokers, so they could cut their losses on the airlines.’

‘That’s... underhanded,’ said Julia. ‘But not really outright –‘

‘Evil?’ Asked Shadowsan, without looking back. ‘I’m afraid for all their dramatics, most of V.I.L.E.’s plans are focused on making money. And their cash-grabbing schemes are what fund their criminal empire, and in turn makes their more... _frivolous_ plans possible.’ They reached the door at the end of the hallway, and Carmen plugged a device into the eighteen-figure numerical lock to crack the passcode. Shadowsan in turn stood guard.

‘Well, I suppose you would know,’ said Julia pointedly. She was pretty sure she could allow herself some spite when they weren’t actively busy or in danger.

Carmen huffed, agitated. ‘Listen – he’s working with us now, he was a double agent the whole time –‘

‘Yes, I would,’ said Shadowsan. ‘Which is why I ask you to point your anger at me, rather than at Carmen.’

Carmen made a desperate embarrassed kind of noise, and tried to break back into the conversation, but was foiled.

‘Do tell,’ said Julia.

‘She knew nothing of your partner’s kidnapping. She was under the impression I was her enemy at the time. V.I.L.E. thought she and your partner were working together against them. We kidnapped him to extract information of her plans and whereabouts –‘

‘You’re _not helping_ –‘ Hissed Carmen as the device cracked the seventh figure in the pass code.

‘-which was why I warned you last time we met, not to let them see you working together with us. V.I.L.E. went back to thinking your partner an ignorant fool,’ Julia couldn’t actually bring herself to object, ‘But should they suspect cooperation with ACME, _anyone_ on your side is put at great risk. Greater risk than you put yourself at already, by drawing their attention.’ He glanced at her, then, and calling his expression “serious” didn’t even begin to cover it. ‘And next time, we may not be able to rescue you before it is too late.’

‘Hang on,’ said Julia. ‘You’re saying you became a turncoat halfway through, and saved Agent Devineaux when _you_ were the one who kidnapped him?’

‘He gets partial credit,’ grumbled Carmen. ‘On both accounts, since the Cleaners probably took care of the actual abduction, and since he stopped Coach Brunt from crushing me to death.’ The lock clicked, and she carefully pushed the door open.

Julia frowned. ‘Well, I still can’t say I’m happy seeing you here, especially since Agent Devineux still hasn’t recovered from the memory extraction. And, by the way, he remembers what you look like now, so be on your guard for a screaming, vengeful Frenchman.’

Shadowsan merely nodded.

There was... More inside the lab than just a seismometer. For one thing, more robots, which the two thieves quickly set out to dispatch. But the object of concern was the shaft running into the floor of the lab and down through the ice below. It was circular, about three meters in diameter, and seemed to narrow gradually the further it went down. It was impossible to see the bottom, and Julia wisely avoided it. Instead she moved to the nearest computer terminal, and plugged in a USB drive Carmen tossed her to allow Player access to the lab’s internal computer network. A second later, Julia’s phone buzzed, and she reached for it, confused. The face of a boy no older than sixteen looked back at her from the video chat.

‘Hey, Agent Argent – couldn’t think of a better way to talk to you, since you don’t have one of our comms.’

‘Player?’ Julia hazarded. He was _considerably_ younger than she had expected. She might to her chagrin be on Shadowsan’s side this one time.

‘The one and only. I’ll fill you in, since the other two are busy.’ Across the room, Carmen broke a chair over a robot’s head, and Shadowsan punched clean through the fuse in another’s torso, making it fizzle and spark out.

‘Please do.’

‘They aren’t simply monitoring the glacier for possible eruptions,’ said Player, pulling up a schematic on the screen to show her. ‘What you see in the middle of the room is a drill.’

‘A drill?’

‘Running down the shaft, yeah. Kinda like the ones they use to drill in geothermal areas around there, to get hot water for their central heating. It drills all the way through the glacial cap, a few hundred meters, and then another three thousand into the crust of the volcano below it.’ Player pulled up another schematic on the screen. ‘Only _this_ drill also has one has one of Doctor Bellum’s gadgets attached to it.’

Julia felt like she had a handle on V.I.L.E.’s pattern – no, their _aesthetic_ by now, and said, ‘Let me guess – it’s a laser, or something? Doctor Bellum doesn’t just want to _predict_ volcanic eruptions – she wants to be able to cause them on demand.’ Partly, perhaps, to reap the benefits of knowing the exact time a far-reaching natural disaster began. But largely, Julia suspects, just to see if she could.

‘Got in one.’ The boy sounded pleasantly impressed. ‘It’s a test project, not set to go off anytime soon. But the security system is made to set it off if someone breaks into the place, to gather as much data as possible on whether it actually _is_ possible. I suspect it’s a recent failsafe – we have been shutting down so many of V.I.L.E.s operations that it makes sense that they would rig a remote station like this one with a kind of black box. It probably wouldn’t actually kickstart a volcano –‘

‘But the heat might cause glacial flooding in the area,’ Julia concluded apprehensively, remembering the hundreds of tourists and locals who might be caught in the way of a flash flood. ‘How do we stop it?’

‘I wish I had a more high-tech answer for you, but it’s pretty simple,’ said Player. ‘Just cut power to the drill.’

Julia ran her eyes up the drill, which extended into the ceiling, and spotted not a single convenient cable she could tear apart with a handy box cutter. ‘Easier said than done...’

The final robot was dispatched, and Julia saw Carmen breathe a small sigh of relief. Immediately, as if the universe were making a mockery of this entire day, there is was a _thunk_ sound, and the drill shuddered as it is brought to life. And somewhere far, far beneath the surface, a great deal of machinery was up to no good.

‘God_damnit_ it!' Shouted Carmen. ‘The security bots must have sent an order to activate it!’

‘Quick! In the wall next to the door!’ Player called out on the phone screen and in the ear buds both Carmen and Shadowsan were wearing. ‘There’s vulnerable cable inside the wall behind the plaster! Cut that and the drill goes off!’

None of them had noticed the sound of distant running feet, right up until it reached the door. It slammed open, admitting Agent Devineaux and, following in his wake, six more robots. There was a perfect tableau for just a split second: Devineaux stared at the three of them – then, his gaze zeroed in on the red ski suit. His eyes bulged in his head, he pointed a finger and roared, ‘_LA FEMME ROUGE_!’

‘_Madre de dios_,’ muttered Carmen. ‘You take care of the robots,’ she said in Shadowsan’s direction, and started towards the bit of wall Player had pointed out to them.

Only, the drill shuddered, and the floor, atop a now-compromised glacial surface _lurched_ beneath them, all of them stumbling on their feet before recovering.

Only, Carmen was standing too close to the shaft into which the drill disappeared, and the shaft was suddenly far too wide to comply with _any_ Health and Safety regulations you cared to name. Julia saw her disappear into the 3840 meter hole in the ground, and the horror that gripped her was too great for her to shout.

She saw Shadowsan falter; one of the robots caught him an iron hit to the jaw, but he barely seemed to notice, too busy staring wide-eyed at where Carmen wasn’t standing any more –

She saw Devineaux, noticing Carmen’s fall, noticing Shadowsan in the room; his face shocked and confused –

– notices the red gloves, clutching with all their strength at the _very_ edge of the shaft!

Devineaux started in the direction of his erstwhile kidnapper, raising the bolt cutters he had been using to defend himself from the robots. But before he could get so far as an inch, Julia thundered, ‘_Stay where you are_, Agent Devineaux!’ And ran with such speed to the edge of the shaft that it felt like she must have teleported there. Carmen was clinging on by her _fingertips_, and Julia never quite appreciated before just how desperate that phrase was. She threw herself on her knees, and reached for her hand to haul her up. Somehow, during all of this, she managed to yell, ‘The wall to the left of the door, Agent! Destroy the cables inside it!’

She didn’t pause to see if he complied, because she was too busy staring into Carmen’s alarmingly pale face as she pulled Carmen up out of the shaft, trying her damndest not to fall in after her. The damn shaft was too wide, and there are no useful corners to kick off from. Carmen scrabbled with her feet against the ice wall, which slid away beneath her boots, then gained some purchase and inched her way up with Julia’s help, until she had her elbows over the edge, and then her shoulders. They are both shaking, whether it is from the strain of trying to pull her from this slippery precipice, or from terror of this seemingly bottomless tunnel straight to Hell.

On the other side of the pit, someone threw an entire robot down the shaft, and it disappeared into the gaping void with a rattling sound that echoed all the way down. Then, the someone was at Julia’s side, grabbing Carmen’s other arm with much greater strength than Julia could muster, and hauling her the rest of the way onto an even surface. Then, once she was kneeling on the tiles, Shadowsan pulled Carmen into a _very_ tight embrace, before letting go almost as suddenly.

It was only now that she could breathe without the blood pounding in her ears threatening to give her an aneurism, that Julia noticed that the drill has stopped working. She turned around shakily on her knees, and saw Devineaux next to the door. He had made a sizable hole in the plaster wall, and cut every single cable inside. Now he was leaning against the doorframe catching his breath, and in his right hand were his bolt cutters, looking a little worse for wear. He met her befuddled gaze, and shrugged.

* * *

It was pretty much a blur after that, with Carmen and her coterie disappearing off somewhere before Devineaux could get the time to ask question. Or bludgeon someone to confession – that wall looked like he really went to town on it with those bolt cutters. At the end, once Julia has explained – more or less – and they were trudging back across the snow to their ride home, she managed a weak smile. ‘It appears that you saved the day, Agent Devineaux.’

The man scoffed. ‘We are not heroes, Agent Argent, we just do our jobs!’

‘Yes, sir. And your job was to arrest Carmen Sandiego.’

He didn’t quite meet her eye. ‘Eh, how can I do that when she is dead? Besides,’ he says, scratching at his chin. ‘That kidnapper... He for some reason took out an automaton that was about to give me a terminal centre parting.’ He made a face. Her partner, Julia knew, was not fond of people with complex motivations. ‘Whatever. And with you yelling at me like that, what else could I do?’

Once they were back in the converted jeep and on their way back down to solid ground, Julia stuck her hands into her pockets for warmth. Unexpectedly, one contained a folded piece of paper. On it was scratched in unfamiliar writing,

> _ “Tell your partner to try cognitive behavioral therapy to help retrieve his memories.”_

She hurriedly put it back in her pocket when Devineaux looked her way. Seemed Carmen’s shadow was showing interest in making up for his past crimes. Julia doubted this would prevent him from committing any new ones, though.

When she tried to catch a nap while they drove back, she was kept awake by images of Carmen disappearing into the ground, and of her own strength failing, and Carmen’s hand slipping from hers. She abandoned the attempt to sleep as a predestined failure.

‘I think I’ll take up weight lifting,’ she said aloud when the jeep finally ground to a halt.

‘Hah?’

‘Nothing.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shadowdad enters stage right! You have no idea how long I've been waiting for him to show up! He's absolutely my favourite character since season 2 aired.  
As a local, I feel honor bound to say that while you almost certainly cannot start a volcanic eruption at will, especially with a geothermal drill, glacial flooding is quite scary in its own right, and that's before you even go into the matter of toxic gas release.  
Also, buck up, Devineaux. Fifteen degrees is balmy!


	5. The Ostentatious Auction Caper, pt. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two agents head for New York to prevent a VERY high-end robbery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is part one of this caper, as the chapter got very long and i decided I'd better split it up. So you're getting the shorter part first, but part 2 should be up tomorrow!

_New York, Upper West Side._

A gala was to be held at a mansion belonging to one Marc Easy; socialite and heir to his grandmother’s estate and chain of high-end auction houses. Three days earlier, his extensive security system had picked up a blurry shot of Carmen Sandiego in one of his establishments. Apparently, the heir had heard of the phantom thief through the grapevine of rich people (in the words of Chief) and had contacted Interpol first. It had been easy for A.C.M.E. to reassign their own operatives to the case.

Which lead directly to the two of them sitting in his _incredibly_ avant-garde lounge, to question Mister Easy himself.

‘You said you were having an auction,’ said Julia. ‘Fine art?’

‘Indeed, along with some collectors’ pieces,’ said Mister Easy. He was what a Hollywood spec script would have put down as a “devilishly handsome” man, but leaned rather more to the angelic end of the spectrum. Even Julia could admit that he had a smile that could thaw an iceberg, and she felt like she intimately knew the metric for that, after their last mission.

He was currently focusing all that charming personality on her partner. Poor man, thought Julia. The idea that Chase could be persuaded to think about anything other than his job for long enough to notice he was being flirted with bordered on madness. She had never known anyone with more of a one-track mind. 

'And you have reason to believe that the thief will use this opportunity to strike?’ Devineaux was writing this down in a notebook, which Julia found rather old-fashioned, since she liked to just record interviews for posterity.

‘It would be a fine time for it,’ said Mister Easy. ‘We will be auctioning off a minor van Gogh, a Pollock, a set of Blaschka glass sculptures –‘

‘_Really_?’ Julia cleared her throat and tried not to blush when they both sent her a look – Mister Easy surprised, Devineaux exasperated. ‘Er, go on.’

‘Right, well, not to mention the people attending.’ He leaned back on an honest-to-god chaise lounge, which matched his outfit, in silver-and-black pinstripe. ‘Even if your darling thief doesn’t show, should a garden variety pickpocket make it inside, they could retire on an evening’s profits alone.’

Julia squinted. The “darling” part had caught her attention.

‘Hm. We will need to be attending. Perhaps in civilian clothes so we do not spook our target,’ said Devineaux, with rather more foresight than Julia was accustomed to by this point.

Mister Easy laughed. ‘Oh, I’m afraid that won’t do – not that you should not attend,’ he said at their expressions. ‘But street clothes will _not_ be appropriate. This is no mere everyday auction – this is the annual charity gala! Even showing up in off-the-rack threads would immediately draw everybody’s attention to you.’ After Chase's difficulty entering Milan Fashion Fest, Julia was prepared to hand him that one.

‘Hang on,’ said Julia. ‘How many guests will be attending?’

He waved a hand. ‘Oh, about three hundred.’

Julia could feel her heart sink. Devineaux wiped a hand across his face. ‘So you’re telling me_ la femme rouge_ does not even have to break in? She can just disguise herself as just about anyone out of _three hundred people?’_

‘But of course. That’s what I find worrying – if this was a mere everyday security threat, I would not have bothered with Interpol.’ Mister Easy’s black eyes, set in a gorgeous brown face with a tastefully trimmed beard, were shrewd. ‘But rumour has it that you two are the only people who have come face to face with her and therefore the only ones who have _any_ hope at recognizing her, should she show up.’

Julia exchanged a glance with her partner. So he had had wanted _them_ to show up. Clearly they weren’t covering their trail well enough – or Mister Easy had contacts who knew more than the average person in the street. 

'And you couldn’t just cancel the gala?’ Asked Devineaux despairingly, as if he already knew what the answer was going to be. Anyone meeting the man for the first time could tell from his near-baroque interior décor and his attitude that he was _not_ the sort to cancel a party over the mere threat of robbery.

He would not. They left, an hour later, after hashing out a deal to have access to all security footage, the staff roster and the guest list, along with a risk assessment of which items were most likely to be stolen. As they said polite goodbyes, Mister Easy turned up the wattage on his dazzling smile until it nearly blinded innocent bystanders, and said, ‘I do suppose you shall be busy all evening, until the criminal is caught?’

‘We are ever vigilant,’ said Devineaux, and Julia could tell he wanted nothing more than to go on tangent about their (his) sacred duty to capture _la femme rouge._ Before he could, however, Mister Easy gave sent him a smirk. ‘What a pity – and here I was hoping you could be my date for the evening.’

‘Uh,’ said Devineaux, and then did not say anything else.

Julia was impressed. It took an exceptionally persistent and bold person to drill through her partner’s mule-headed tunnelvision, but Mister Easy seemed to be managing it alright. She nodded goodbye, and gently dragged her partner away by the elbow, noting that he was being curiously quiet.

‘Maybe you should take him up on it,’ she said as they walked back to their car (a rental. A.C.M.E had still not forgiven Chase for totalling two different department-issued vehicles).

‘_Ha_?’

‘I mean, it would allow you to meet pretty much everyone who arrives. It’s his gala, he’ll be greeting people left and right all night. And he seems like he has something to hide – you could keep an eye on him as well.’

Devineaux squinted, and rubbed his chin. His stubble made a rasping sound. ‘You make a good point.’ 

'Also he is very handsome.’

He sighed, sounding put-upon. ‘He is, isn’t he? But we are professionals, Agent Argent! We will not be distracted from our goal at any cost, tomorrow night or any other time!’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Anyway,’ said Devineaux as they crossed the street. ‘I doubt he can tango enough to keep up with me.’


	6. The Ostentatious Auction Caper, pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to... tango.

The manor was lit brilliantly in the night, comically expensive cars letting out well-dressed guests in front of the entrance. Chauffeurs whisked away the automobiles for the next one to arrive and deposit yet another socialite, Hollywood starlet, oil tycoon, business magnate, venture capitalist or any other flavour of plutocrat you might think of, onto the steps. The two agents arrived on foot, having left their car at the gate for easy exit in case a chase - or, failing that, escape - turned out to be necessary. Her partner tugged nervously at his bowtie, too used to his own badly done-up half-windsor tie. He’d never really able to leave behind the bad suit of a detective, even after A.C.M.E. updated their work uniforms.

‘Stop fidgeting, sir,’ said Julia, trying not to tug at the sleeves of her own tux. Hers was a dark royal blue, his dark purple. Julia dreaded to think how much they had cost, but the Chief had said that there came a time in every Agent’s life where they had to, quote, “pull a goddamn James Bond.” Anyway, black and white was unoriginal _at best_. They hadn’t had to do much – the suits had just been delivered without warning, by a mysterious old lady in house slippers, who had disappeared without saying a word. Chase had shaved, but his five o’clock shadow had returned almost immediately, and Julia had combed back her hair for the occasion. But they still felt woefully unprepared for an evening potentially socializing with people who probably thought a carton of milk was ten euros.

Still, thought the part of Julia who had wanted to be a secret agent since she was five years old and had never stopped, they looked _really cool._

But both of them were out-dressed by Mister Easy, who met them in the foyer wearing an aquamarine, _sequined _jacket, complimented by the same shade of lipstick. Julia briefly caught her partner’s expression of someone who had been belted across the face with a fish, before he was back to glaring suspiciously at every guest who passed by.

‘The auction begins at 9.30, correct?’ She asked.

‘Yes – up until then, the pieces are secured in the back storage room,’ said Mister Easy. _He _called it a ‘storage room’ – Julia would have called it a mid-to-high level security vault.

‘One of us should guard the room,’ said Devineaux. ‘And one of us keep an eye on the camera feed.’

‘Oh, right away? Surely you have time for one dance,’ said Mister Easy, voice as smooth as honey. Devineaux opened his mouth, but Julia said, ‘I think that might be a better bet than the vault, sir, that way you can keep an eye on the crowd. I can do the same through the cameras. After all, we do not know if they will make their move while the pieces are in storage.’

Devineaux squinted and for a moment she thought he might be suspicious, although she herself wasn’t certain what of. But then he said, ‘A great idea! _Reconnoitre_ and report back, Age- I mean, Ms. Argent,’ he added lamely, attempting to preserve their cover. He was whisked away by Mister Easy, who at some point had taken his arm, and they disappeared into the crowd. Julia headed for the security room. There, bulky security personelle loomed around screens and, occasionally, commentated on the party like they were at a rugby match.

‘Any sign of her?’ Asked Julia

‘Nothing so far,’ said a very tall and muscular woman in her forties. ‘But the last few guests on the list only just arrived.’ She chortled, and pointed to one of the screens. ‘Hey, Felicia, did you see that? Whatshername, Ms. Universe from last year just belted that guy who was the season finalist on the Bachelorette with her handbag up on the third floor corridor!’

‘No way! Play it back!’

But Julia didn’t hear them, because she was staring at another screen entirely. Namely, the camera feed from the corner of the ballroom, where a figure immediately familiar to her appeared as if out of nowhere. She seemed to look up at the camera trained on her, and although she was too far away for her expression to show, Julia knew she was smirking. Then a group of guests passed in front of her, and she disappeared.

Julia turned on her heel without saying a word, and ran down the hallway, through the wide double doors into the ballroom, glancing frantically about. Carmen was nowhere to be seen. She turned around to check the next room, but someone tapped her on the elbow. A young man in a black-and-white tux and red hair smiled at her winningly. ‘May I have this dance?’ He asked, in an _unbearably _posh accent.

Julia began to reply ‘absolutely not’, then did a double-take. Zack’s facade wobbled a bit, and he winked. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he grinned. ‘I think you may.’

They danced somewhat vaguely across the floor, only paying enough attention to the music so as not to look suspicious or incompetent. He leaned in and his accent dropped a few octaves and a couple of social classes to a more familiar Bostonian one. ‘Carmen is heading to the storage room. But she says you need to be careful – you’re both being watched here!’

‘What?’ Julia nearly jerked back, but Zack manoeuvred her around another twirling couple with surprising finesse, and – Oh, my, was that Agent Devineaux and Mister Easy tangoing across the room in the distance?

‘By whom?’ She hissed. ‘V.I.L.E.?’

‘Yeah – they’re still under the impression someone in A.C.M.E. is helping us out, even though they don’t think it’s Agent Idiot – er, your partner, anymore. So whatever you do – you have to make sure any V.I.L.E. operative that sees you will think you are _not _on our side.’ He swallowed. ‘I mean, unless you _want _them to come knocking on your door.’

‘Shouldn’t be too hard.’ He spun her around, and Julia quashed the thought that she wished it wasn’t _him _she was dancing with. Devineaux tangoed past, a rose between his teeth. Incredibly enough, he seemed too occupied to berate her for not being in the security room. Apparently, Marc Easy _could _keep up.

Carmen’s _other _ginger friend glanced at his watch, tangoed them to the second exit to the ballroom, and spun Juliet until she was out of his hands entirely, and jerked his head towards the door. ‘Go!’

She tried not to hurry too obviously this time, knowing there might be eyes on her. The storage room was on the second floor, next to the room where the auction would take place, past two doors and four guards from the auction house. She had security clearance and they let her through. She braced herself, certain she would find either a V.I.L.E. agent in the middle of a heist, or Carmen herself. But the room was empty, aside for the display cases for those pieces that would be at the auction. And so she was confronted for the first time with the little glass figures that had excited her so much when Mister Easy first mentioned them, and felt her heart catch in her throat. Reverently, she walked closer one step at a time, until the Blaschka sculptures were before her, behind glass casing: A set of sea invertebrates, perfectly rendered in coloured glass. A squid, a sea anemone, a jellyfish, and others. But what most caught her eye was a tiny blue rendition of a nudibranch, laid out on a velvet pillow, looking more like some magical creature or alien than anything that really could exist on planet Earth.

‘”Sea slug” is a terrible name for such a beautiful creature, isn’t it?’ Said a voice behind her. ‘Hard to believe they’re as much as a hundred and sixty years old. The sculptures, I mean.’

Julia spun herself on her heel all on her own this time, and was desperately relieved that the case was closed and too steady for her to knock over. Carmen was there, in a scarlet dinner jacket and bowtie, with a black shirt and slacks. Her hair was in a braid over her shoulder, and she was grinning. Julia could feel her palms get sweaty, which wasn’t very attractive, but at least it wasn’t as immediately obvious as blushing.

‘You can relax for the moment,’ said Carmen. ‘I know Zack probably upsold the threat a little bit, but I’m pretty sure that there’s only one V.I.L.E. member here tonight.’

‘And here I thought I would get to have an dramatic confrontation with you for their benefit,’ said Julia. She was pretty sure she never used to quip so much before, but there is something about Carmen Sandiego that brings it out in people.

Carmen looked momentarily serious, though. ‘I don’t want them to try the same thing with you as they did with Agent Devineaux. Please try to be careful.’

‘I always am.’

‘I seem to recall a particular accident on top of a glacier...’

‘We must remember it very differently – it was certainly not _me _who needed to be careful.’ She waved a hand to the case behind her, hoping that if they got to the point she would stop sweating. ‘Is this what they are here for? Or all of it?’

‘Rather more than that, I’m afraid,’ said Carmen. ‘They’re trying to disgrace and bankrupt Marc Easy.’ She strolled along the cases in Julia’s periphery, so that Julia had to turn to keep her eyes on her.

‘_Him? _Why? I thought V.I.L.E. dealt mostly in theft!’

‘Technically, but they still manage a lot of variety on the side. No, they don’t like what he’s been doing with his grandmother’s company.’

‘What _has _he been doing? It can’t be embezzlement or fraud, can it? V.I.L.E. would approve of that, I imagine.’ Carmen kept moving, and for some reason Julia could not stand the idea of turning her back on her. Or, rather, the idea was a little too exciting, and so she resisted giving in to it as hard as she could.

'Well, as long as it benefitted them in some way,’ said Carmen, and walked over to a nearby case. ‘But you’re right. It’s the opposite – Mister Easy has been using the auction house and his rich friends’ spending habits to fund a number of international and local charities and scholarship organizations. V.I.L.E. gets rid of quite a few of their stolen goods through auction houses like this one, but even though they get paid either way, they do not like that the money from the resale is going to a good cause.’ She gave a sharp little smile. ‘So they mean to swap out real art pieces and artefacts for fake ones, so that the auction house and Mister Easy himself will lose all credibility.’

‘Wait – are you telling me he’s a _philanthropist?’ _Julia gave her a disbelieving stare. ‘Then why is he hiding it?’

Carmen shrugged. ‘He thinks that if people catch on, the auctions won’t be as popular anymore and he won’t be able to raise as much money.’

‘Wait – how do _you _know this?’

‘Oh, I’m working with him.’

‘_What?!’ _

Carmen had the indecency to look a little embarrassed. ‘After we realized his motives, we decided to get his help to stop them from swapping all of these,’ she gestured to the objects in the glass cases, ‘With fakes. I – may have warned him you two might be coming. And... Maybe... asked him to keep Agent Devineaux out of the way.’

Julia didn’t even know where to begin with that, but then an almost-imperceptible noise startled them both. When they both looked upward they saw, far above in the ceiling, the screws holding a tiny grate in place being removed with a power drill. The grate hadn’t been thought a security risk when they set up the storage room, Julia knew. It was far too small for any normal human to fit through.

The key word being “normal”.

Before they could manage to make a completely silent entrance, the thief’s grip slipped. Julia heard a soft curse, and then the grate tumbled down towards the floor, right towards the glass case. Without thinking Julia moved to push the case out of the way. Thankful it was on wheels for easier transport to the auction room. The grate landed with a clatter on the floor where they case had been, and probably would have smashed the glass to pieces. Then a softer “thud” heralded the entrance of a white-haired woman in a green and orange jump suit, her face covered by... cat-face goggles? A mask? Honestly, Julia didn’t really get the logic of the animal themes V.I.L.E. had going on, especially since none of the thieves so far had really committed to the aesthetics properly.

The unexpected cat-woman looked around, and thankfully did not spot Julia, since pushing the case out of the way had brought her out of sight behind a large carved ship’s figurehead, also meant for the auction. She _did _however spot Carmen, and growled in dismay. ‘Looks like a little Black Sheep has decided to crash the party!’

‘Are you ever going to get with the program?’ Carmen asked, stepping out of the way of the art pieces and artefacts surrounding them. ‘It’s Carmen now.’

‘I don’t care _what _it is, I’ll get rid of you just fine, whatever you’re calling yourself now!’ The woman lunged, but Carmen dodged and ducked as she attacked, never throwing a blow herself. Julia realized she was drawing the attacker away from the breakable and priceless objects in the room. Frantically, Julia looked around for something to use as a weapon – she had her stun-gun, but again that was not an ideal weapon with the way they were moving all over the place. A.C.M.E. had issued them those sleeping-gas guns, but even Chase had taken one look at them and decided they were a stupid weapon.

Her gaze landed on a couple of antique rapiers on a stand. She shook her head. What was she thinking! She didn’t know how to swordfight! And she did not actually want to run anyone through, V.I.L.E. operative or not.

‘I’m not letting you steal anything here, Tigress,’ said Carmen. ‘That charity gala is going ahead, and you won’t be able to stop it!’

Tigress cackled. ‘Hah! If that’s what you think, be my guest!’ She swung her claw-tipped gauntlets, and Carmen narrowly avoided a slash across the face.

...Okay, so Carmen wanted her to think that she didn’t know V.I.L.E. intended to swap the pieces for fakes. She was distracting Tigress from something. Either to buy time, or to cover up something behind the scenes.

There was a crash as Tigress threw Carmen bodily across the floor, and she hit a case, which wobbled and caused the figurehead Julia was hiding behind to nearly fall over. She steadied it desperately, but the commotion had revealed her location to Tigress, who now watched her guardedly, with a sneer on her face. Carmen still hadn’t gotten up.

Julia acted on a hunch. She did not know how to swordfight, that was true. But she _had _done theatre and drama all through college.

When Carmen Sandiego finally picked herself up off the floor, she looked up into a sword blade held an inch from her nose, then _farther_ up into the face of Agent Argent.

‘A spat between thieves?’ Said Julia with much more confidence than she really felt. ‘Rest assured, A.C.M.E. isn’t letting _either _of you gett away with robbing this place tonight!’

Carmen looked confused for all of a split second, then miraculously played along. ‘You!’ She said outraged, as if she hadn’t known Julia was in the room all along. ‘You just don’t know when to quit, do you?’ She pushed herself off the ground into a backflip, and landed on her feet, next to the rack holding the rest of the swords. In a second, she had her own rapier, and it was trained on Julia. Tigress, meanwhile, looked increasingly confused.

‘You’re letting the real thief get away!’ Said Carmen, lunging with her sword. Julia managed a passable parry.

‘The real thief here is you!’ She lunged back, but let Carmen direct the fight in the direction she seemed to want it to go. ‘I will not hear more of your lies! A thief who steals only from thieves? How stupid do you think we are!’ Perhaps she was channelling Chase right now, Julia reflected, although she drew the line at doing the accent.

‘I never should have wasted my breath on you!’ Carmen yelled back, then added under her breath, ‘You’re doing great – keep it up, let her escape!’

‘What?’ Hissed Julia back.

‘Trust me!’ Raising her voice again, Carmen yelled, ‘This will be the last time you get in my way!’ And thrust the sword so that it _just _missed Julia’s throat, and stuck in the wall instead. Over her shoulder, Julia could see Tigress put something down, then hurriedly climb back the way she’d come, stopping for a smug glance back at the two of them, still “fighting”.

‘Is she gone?’ Carmen whispered, nearly chest-to-chest now with Julia.

‘Yes.’ She tried to catch her breath, and to not notice too much how Carmen was also breathing heavily. It was... Difficult, with her standing so close.

Carmen’s eyes crinkled in relief. ‘Oh, good. Do you think she bought it?’

‘Looks like it. I like your suit.’ _Why _did she say that out loud?

‘Oh – thank you! Yours is lovely!’ Carmen yanked the sword out of the wall and stepped back, to Julia’s considerable disappointment. Then she glanced back up to the hole in the ceiling, and breathed a sigh of relief when it was unoccupied.

‘How come you wanted her to escape?’ Asked Julia, still holding onto the rapier. For all that she didn’t know how to use it, she felt very... powerful, holding onto it. ‘I thought you wanted to stop her from replacing the pieces with fakes?’

Carmen laughed ruefully. ‘Ah – I’m afraid that ship already sailed. They stole the originals weeks ago, and all of these are actually fakes.’

‘What?’ Julia looked around wildly at the display cases.

‘Well, not all of them – just a few very prestigious items, like the Blaschkas. But that was the problem right there.’ Carmen opened up a case, and pulled out a glass replica of a small jellyfish. ‘One of the V.I.L.E. operatives they contracted for this job – Copy Cat – was too good at her job. Not even experts could tell the difference between the fakes and the originals, not unless they quite literally ran lab tests! And unless there was something wrong with the way they _look, _why would people ever think to run tests on them?’ She held up the jellyfish, which shone in the light; utterly flawless. ‘So Tigress came here to plant an... obvious fake. Not a bad one, but one just good enough to fool people who aren’t experts.’

‘But then – we must get the originals back!’ Julia blurted out.

Carmen smiled, and there wasn’t any persona behind it. Just the smile of satisfaction at a job well down; a magic trick pulled off to perfection. ‘Already taken care of. We intercepted the originals as they were being transported this morning. When those briefcases arrive at their destination, Professor Maelstrom will be the proud owner of some very coveted Hummel figurines.’ Her smile widened. ‘We didn’t want V.I.L.E. to catch on until then. The originals are currently being kept in nondescript cardboard boxes in the coat room next to the auction hall.’

Julia was lost for words, because that beautifully elegant planning, that subtle sense of humour, was exactly what made her go weak at the knees every time she met this remarkable woman. She managed to blurt out, ‘That’s genius.’

‘Hey now,’ Carmen said jokingly. ‘You’ll make me conceited if you –‘ And then she did not get any further, because Julia had taken two steps forward, pulled her in by the lapels of her jacket, and pressed her mouth to hers.

It lasted just a couple of seconds, before Julia pulled away, scarlet in the face. Carmen’s eyes were wide and her expression one of considerable surprise and not a shred of her regular composure. She did not say a word.

Julia cleared her throat. ‘Sorry. I –‘

This time _she _did not get any further before Carmen pulled her in, firmly, by the bowtie.

On the one hand, it wasn’t an amazing kiss by traditional metrics. Carmen definitely had not kissed anyone before, which was unusual in a woman in her early twenties, but Julia wasn’t about to cast aspersions. It wasn’t as if _she_ had kissed that many people in her life. By another metric entirely – one based on yearning and tension and suppressed longing and frankly just _pining_ for this incredibly attractive woman – it was absolutely the best kiss Julia Argent had ever had.

It ended, although she had _no _idea how much time had passed, when Julia’s phone alarm went off, letting her know the auction started in just fifteen minutes. She pulled away to turn the alarm off, and met Carmen’s gaze to find that she was faintly pink in the face and definitely a little lost for words herself.

Julia swallowed, and valiantly resisted the urge to kiss her again. ‘The auction –‘ She began.

‘Yup,’ said Carmen, nodding frantically. ‘We have to, um, make sure everything is in order. I’m sure you’re busy, too.’

‘Yes,’ said Julia. ‘But –‘

‘_But _we’ll definitely, um, talk about this? Later.’

‘Oh,’ said Julia, definitely relieved. ‘Right, later.’

Carmen straightened out Julia’s bow tie, and Julia shyly smoothed out the wrinkles on her coat in return. Then Carmen stepped back, gave Julia a small, surprisingly shy smile. ‘Later.’

‘Later,’ agreed Julia, and then Carmen was gone as if she had never been there.

She took a minute to compose herself, before hurrying out of the room and down the corridor, asking a couple of staff on the way if they had seen her partner. It was for nothing, until she turned a corner, and was met by him coming the other way.

‘Ms. Argent! Where have you been! The auction starts in ten minutes, and we have not yet located _la femme rouge _or any of her accomplices!’

‘I-‘ Julia began, not at all sure _where _to begin, especially after committing what would _definitely _count as aiding and abetting a known criminal, before pausing. Her partner continued heedless, ‘We must be vigilant, Agent! If we are distracted for even a second, there will be no winning against these criminals!’

Julia stared at him – or, more accurately, his partially undone bow tie, his ruffled hair, and crucially, the lipstick smudges on his face and neck. _Teal _lipstick. _Then_ she noticed that the door he had emerged from earlier was actually to a coat closet, and that Marc Easy was currently exiting through the same door, putting away his recently reapplied lipstick.

Agent Devineaux petered off and glanced over his shoulder. Mister Easy made a “call me!” gesture, before winking to Julia, and disappearing towards the auction room.

‘Well?’ Barked Devineaux when he noticed her expression. ‘What are you staring at?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all sir.’

* * *

  


She didn’t see Carmen again for the rest of the night, or the day after.

However, when she got up the morning after the auction went off without a hitch, she found something on the end table in her hotel room. A tiny blue glass nudibranch; a fake so good that she could never have know it wasn’t the real thing. At least, not if someone hadn’t told her the trick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's better than dancing with the girl of your dreams at a fancy gala? Having a sexual-tension filled sword-fight with her, of course!


	7. An Intimate Interlude, pt.1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At 15.23 in the afternoon, Julia Argent received a secret note, delivered inside her monthly copy of National Geographic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No sexy stuff in this chapter, in case the title mislead you. Just a lot of sappiness between two doofuses.

At 15.23 in the afternoon, Julia Argent received a secret note, delivered inside her monthly copy of _National Geographic_. The note was written in Dancing Man Cipher, which Julia recognized because she had read every Sherlock Holmes story multiple times (as evidenced by a dog-eared copy her grandmother had got her as a kid). When deciphered, it read ‘Meet at_ Le Chat Noir_ at 12.30 Tuesday 24th. Burn note after reading.’

It was the most roundabout way to arrange a date she had ever experienced. She got the sense that the intrigue was at least in part Carmen’s way of flirting. She was absolutely unsurprised when she realized that she was definitely into it.

Tuesday _could_ not come fast enough. They were not on any assignment at the moment, and had returned to A.C.M.E.s French headquarters in Poitiers, on leave for a few days until the next mission popped up. She did not have to worry about Devineaux popping up out of nowhere, as he had a tendency to do on their days off. Apparently he had taken her suggestion and had signed up for therapy. Julia could not quite decide whether to be impressed that A.C.M.E. had their very own team of mental health professionnel, or to be concerned that there was apparently such a demand for them.

_ Le Chat Noir_ was not in Julia’s part of town, but a bookshop she frequented was. She made her way there before heading to the café, so that anyone tailing her would not think it out of character for her to stop by at a seemingly random place for coffee on her way home. Browsing the art history shelves, she picked up a book on Scandinavian filigree, and then tried her best to make her way leisurely to the café, and not to constantly check her watch on the way there.

She ordered a cappuccino and sat inside at a corner table which gave a view of the exits, and which was surrounded by a couple of empty tables so that other guests could not easily eavesdrop. Somehow, Carmen still managed to sneak up on her.

‘Is this seat taken?’ Asked a familiar voice. When she looked up, Julia found black hair in a fishtail braid, blue jeans and a blue faux-leather jacket. Behind contouring and eyeshadow that told the eye that _certainly_ you were not looking upon international criminal Carmen Sandiego, the real Carmen smiled back at her.

‘Of course not,’ said Julia, and couldn’t help the nervous smile.

When Carmen had sat down, she murmured, ‘Did you destroy the note?’

‘Of _course_,’ said Julia, mildly offended. ‘What kind of secret agent do you take me for?’

She received a grin. ‘I would apologize for the intrigue, but I think we both know why it is necessary.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Julia. ‘Although I have to admit I am frankly amazed at how neither A.C.M.E. nor V.I.L.E. seem to realize the extent to which we’ve worked together.’

‘Better knock on wood,’ warned Carmen. ‘We want to keep it that way.’

‘Yes...’ Said Julia, hesitating.

A perfect eyebrow was raised. ‘You disagree?’

‘I... Have been wondering,’ said Julia, internally berating herself that she was bringing this up _now_ when this meeting was supposed to be about _personal_ things. ‘Whether it would be a good idea to make our cooperation... more official, as it were.’

The eyebrows climbed up Carmen’s forehead, and she actually leaned back in her chair. ‘Are you suggesting I _join_ A.C.M.E.?’

‘No – well, I’m not suggesting it _now_. But I think we should consider how much we might get done if I could act more openly when assisting you.’

‘You do more than that,’ argued Carmen. ‘And I know you’re not fond of him, but Shadowsan had a point. If V.I.L.E. thinks you’re working with me, you’ll be in danger.’

‘I’m an agent, I’m already in danger,’ said Julia calmly. ‘But do not decide on it right now. This is something that should be carefully thought over.’

Carmen grinned. ‘I have to admit I would prefer not to undo our efforts. After all we did a pretty spectacular job at convincing them we’re enemies.’

Julia felt the blush rise up her neck and crawl towards her ears. ‘Yes, er. Is, is Player listening?’

Carmen cleared her throat. ‘Uh, no. I told him this was a… solo mission. We shouldn’t be interrupted by anyone.’

'Oh, good,’ said Julia awkwardly.

Carmen – chuckled, rather than giggle. It was a silly sound, and Julia couldn’t help but do so back. When they’d both stopped, Carmen pushed a lock of fake hair behind her ear, and said, ‘So, um, about last week...’

‘It doesn’t _have_ to mean anything,’ Julia rushed to say. ‘That is to say – not unless you would like it to. I know it would be... Logistically ridiculous, considering our, er, jobs.’

And what if I want it to mean something?’ Said Carmen steadily, holding her gaze, and Julia found herself lost for words. Reaching out across the table, Carmen covered Julia’s hand with her own. ‘I know it would be far from a normal relationship, since we can hardly meet without seven layers of deception. But I like you. You’re clever and interesting and... I would like you to stick around. Also you’re a great kisser.’

Her throat dry as a desert, Julia managed to croak, ‘That should be my line.’

Carmen’s smile widened. ‘Please, I’m under no delusion about my own abilities in that area. I didn’t exactly have the most conventional upbringing, so I don’t have much practice.’

Feeling brave enough to take a leap, Julia said, ‘Seeing as you excel at everything you put your mind to, it shouldn’t take you long to catch up.’ It was possibly the smoothest thing she’d ever said in her life, and Julia knew with absolute certainty that it would be the last time she’d manage it.

‘Wstflg,’ Carmen said, and Julia _cherished_ the flustered look on her face. Their orders arrived, and they both attempted to hide their blushes in the coffee.

‘I still have no idea how we’ll manage it,’ Julia admitted, putting down her cup carefully.

‘We’ll figure something out,’ Carmen said. ‘Between the two of us we have a great deal of resources. We’ll just have to be careful. I don’t cherish the thought of V.I.L.E. going through you to try to get to me.’

‘Nor I of A.C.M.E. finding out,’ Julia admitted. ‘They might try to turn us against each other, or get information about you through me. I think it’s for the best if I don’t know your plans too far ahead, nor anything about the location of your headquarters.’

For some reason, Carmen made a funny face at that. ‘You’re probably right,’ she said. ‘Not that I would call it fit for guests, currently.’ Then she reached into her pocket, and produced something tiny and rectangular, pushing it across the table to Julia. ‘Here, take this. It will allow us to communicate without your superiors knowing.’

Julia picked it up. It was a SIM card.

‘Your phone can carry two, right?’

‘Yes.’ It also had a truly impressive storage memory, A.C.M.E. database access, unparalleled GPS and access to premium internet data plans anywhere in the world. Also a decent selfie camera.

‘It has one number on it – mine.’

'Are you sure this is secure?’

‘It’s set up so that Player can run interference to make it look like you’re calling a range of takeout restaurants whenever you call me. Nobody should be able to tap your calls. If it got confiscated, anyone digging into it would just find a backup SIM card you got in New Zealand and haven’t used since.’

‘Useful.’ She slotted it into her smartphone. ‘I’m afraid I have to go – we’re heading out of the country early tomorrow. Well, ‘early’ doesn’t feel like a strong enough statement for 2.35 in the morning...’

‘Of course,’ said Carmen with her crooked grin. ‘We’re busy people.’ She put a crumpled bill on the table, and Julia gave her an indulgent look when she noticed the size of the tip. Carmen only shrugged and grinned wider.

She let Carmen get up to leave ahead of her, since it was better they not be seen leaving the place together. Then something occurred to her. ‘Oh – tell your shady friend thanks from me – his tip seems to have been right on the money.’

‘Sure?’ Said Carmen non-plussed.

‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing nefarious. And say hi to Zach and Ivy for me.’

‘Will do.’ Then, Carmen bent down swiftly, and kissed her on the lips, before pulling away. ‘See you around, Jules.’

Julia caught her hand, and kissed her knuckles, and said with a smile, ‘See you around.’

And she found she could barely wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Devineaux in this chapter, which is practically a first. But we know at least he's started going to therapy instead of ignoring his trauma - I'm kinda proud of him, ya know?


	8. An Intimate Interlude, pt.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julia makes a call.

It had been a long day for Julia. Most of it had been spent flying back from Canada, not getting a whole lot of sleep. This was partly because of turbulence, partly because her partner had unfolded his _entire _Conspiracy Map well into the center isle on the plane. He had kept connecting things with red yarn, which soon became a mess impossible to untangle, while muttering about V.I.L.E.’s shipping manifests. He’d only stopped when they landed and Marc Easy called him, to arrange a date next time Chase would stop by stateside. Apparently there had been more to the man’s interest in him than just “distraction”. Julia was happy for her partner. Especially if being in a relationship (with what had to be just an _extraordinarily_ patient person) meant he thought about something other than work for two whole minutes at a time.

She had been back in her flat only an hour, and the entire time it felt like her smartphone had been glaring at her. Or rather, the extra SIM-card inside. _“Use me!”_ It said to Julia. _“Just call your girlfriend! You know you want to! Are you really gonna act like a dumb teenager and wait for _her_ to call _you_ so you don’t look too needy?”_

So Julia sat down on her bed, took a deep breath, and pressed the “call” button. It nearly rang out, and she thought there would be no answer. It occurred to her she didn’t know exactly whether Carmen was currently on a heist, and considered hanging up. But surely Player wouldn’t let Julia interrupt them all like that?

Then suddenly, someone picked up. The video feed was dark for a second, before Carmen’s face appeared, dimly backlit by an evening sky. ‘Jules!’ She exclaimed.

‘Hey!’ Julia answered, startled. She had been steeling herself for disappointment.

‘Sorry it took so long for me to pick up – I wanted to find some privacy.’ The frame was narrow enough that she couldn’t see much behind Carmen, but she thought she could hear waves in the background.

‘Oh – don’t worry about it!’ Julia sat back against the headboard, and let the warmth at seeing Carmen’s face suffuse her bones. ‘I’m just glad to see you.’

‘It’s been a while, hasn’t it?’ Carmen smiled. ‘You guys were in Toronto while we were in Dubai. How did it go with the money-laundering operation?’

‘Quite well. Your tip was spot-on. I managed to stop Chase from destroying our A.C.M.E. issued speedboat, too.’

‘Now _that _is an accomplishment.’

Julia laughed. ‘He insisted on taking me out for waffles in return, since it was my birthday.’

‘It was your birthday – wait, I _missed _your birthday?’ The sky wobbled behind her as Carmen shot up from her seat. ‘Oh – I am the _worst_ girlfriend...’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Julia laughing. ‘You weren’t there, anyway.’

‘Yeah but, birthdays are important, right? I promise I’ll make it up to you.’

‘Alright,’ said Julia. ‘I have to admit – I guess I thought you’d know all that stuff before we even met.’

Carmen blinked, and took a second to catch her drift. ‘You mean – I’d have information on you?’

‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed –‘

‘No, it’s not as if we don’t have a profile on most everyone we cross paths with,’ said Carmen. ‘But I made a decision to personally not find those things out, with you. I didn’t want to invade your privacy.’

‘Oh,’ said Julia, pleasantly surprised. ‘That’s... I really appreciate that, actually.’

‘But I guess I didn’t ask you, either. I guess there’s a lot of things we don’t know about each other.’

‘Well, it’s not too late to start – how about you tell me when _your_ birthday is? Or is that classified information?’ She said it as a joke, but then she noticed Carmen’s hesitation, and it stopped sounding like one.

Carmen grinned, but it was soft. ‘No, it isn’t. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you – I don’t know when my birthday is.’

‘Ah?’ Said Julia, although there was a great deal more she wanted to ask.

‘Look...’ Carmen hesitated choosing her words carefully. ‘There is a lot of stuff I can tell you, but in some cases I am as much in the dark as you are. I’m working on it, but don’t take it the wrong way if I can’t tell you. It’s usually because I don’t know.’

‘Alright then,’ said Julia. ‘So let’s try this, then. We’ll take turns asking things we want to know about each other – and you can say pass if you don’t know the answer or can’t disclose the information. The ones we do answer, though, we have to be honest.’

Carmen grinned. ‘I think I can live with those rules. You go first.’

‘Okay. Best subject at school?’

‘That’s easy - languages. And Stealth.’

Julia decided to let that pass without comment.

‘My turn?’

‘Yup.’

‘Best subject at school?’

‘You don’t have to ask the same question.’

‘Okay, but I still want to know.’

‘History. Favourite food.’

‘Awh, you’re going to make me choose? Fine, but just the favourite for of the week – Bao buns.’ Behind Carmen, the sun was setting, and the screen was the only thing lighting up her face in the growing darkness. ‘Favourite color?’

‘Grey. Childhood nickname?’

Carmen hesitated.

‘Pass?’ Julia asked.

‘No, it’s just...’ She lowered her voice into a mutter. ‘_Lambikins._’

Julia valiantly held back a giggle.

Carmen was next. ‘Why did you become a cop?’

Julia stopped giggling. ‘Um.’

‘Pass?’

‘No... So, I always meant to become an art historian.’ 

Carmen nodded.

Julia took a deep breath. ‘But when I was fourteen, I visited Greece on holiday with my parents, and we went to the Parthenon. And I was the most excited I had ever been in my life – but during the tour, the guide showed us where the Parthenon marbles should have been, before they were removed and stolen out of the country by an English aristocrat in 1816.’ Julia stared into the distance, not really seeing the screen anymore.

'And they left such a terrible gap, even though we know perfectly well where they are – in the British Museum.’ She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. ‘And I thought, well, that’s a crime. Or at least it should be. Greece has been trying to get them back for over two hundred years without success. Smarter and more powerful people than me have put all their effort into trying to retrieve them. And I suppose at that point I could have decided to work in repatriation, but it just seemed like such impossible goal to chase. Former colonial empires especially do not like to return the things they stole.’ She shrugged. ‘So I became a police officer specializing in art theft instead. Then at least I could prevent such things in the modern day, or retrieve objects _recently _stolen.’

Carmen hummed. ‘Maybe when V.I.L.E. has been dealt with, I could look into changing careers into repatriation.’

‘You mean, you would steal artefacts from museums and return them to their original cultures?’ Said Julia unable to resist a smile.

‘Hey, what are they going to do once they’re there?’ Carmen shrugged innocently. ‘It’s not as if the original owners were the ones who stole them back. They couldn’t blamed for things just _appearing _in their museums.’

‘You may have a point, although I think it is a field where we would have to tread carefully.’ She adjusted her grip on the phone. ‘My turn?’

‘Mm, yup.’

‘Okay. Why are you so... familiar, with V.I.L.E.? Not the organization,’ she clarified. ‘But the individual people. And, Shadowsan used to be one of them, but you clearly know each other well.’ She knew it was a risky question, whether it was classified or not, but she asked anyway.

Carmen opened her mouth, and then closed it again. She didn’t say anything.

‘Sorry, you can say “pass”.’

‘I’m...’ Carmen wrestled with her words. ‘I’m trying to think of how to say it. To tell the truth, I almost don’t want to tell you. Because it might put you in more danger, if you knew. But also because you might not trust me anymore if I did.’

Julia hesitated. ‘That’s –‘

‘Not a great thing to say to make myself sound trustworthy?’ Carmen said with a sharp grin.

‘I suppose you won’t _know_, until you tell me.’ Because Carmen’s expression was distant, she said, ‘But let me tell you something – I may not know a lot of things about you. I may not know where you came from, or your birthday, or how you have the skills that you do, or anything about your past –‘

‘Encouraging,’ muttered Carmen.

‘-but I know the why.’

‘”Why”?’

‘I may not know the events that lead you there, but I know your ethical and moral reasons for fighting V.I.L.E. I know our shared values. I know your priorities, your insistence on not putting bystanders at risk, even when it compromises your own safety. I know your sense of humor, your exceedingly attractive competence –‘

‘Stop it.’

‘-and how much you value the people you keep close to you. I don’t know where in the world you came from, but I know _you_, Carmen Sandiego, and I like what I see. And if that’s the way you want to keep it, that’s okay. If you can respect my privacy, I can do the same for you.’

Carmen had been getting steadily redder in the face, and let out a huge breath of relief when Julia stopped speaking. ‘Oh, I am _so _glad one of us has any idea of how to do,’ she waved a hand emphatically between the two of them. ‘_This. _Um. Relationships.’

Julia smiled at the phone screen. ‘It’s not so hard once you get used to it. We just have to... Talk about things. Uh, even when it means talking about how we’re _not_. Going to talk about something, I mean.’

‘I suppose I should take my own advice, huh,’ Carmen muttered, seemingly to herself. ‘I can’t tell _him _to do one thing and then not do the same.’ Her tone changed, now directed at Julia. ‘Alright. I can tell you. And I – I _want_ to tell you.’

Julia nodded, and waited.

‘So... I don’t know who my parents are, or any of my blood relations, actually. I’m not even necessarily sure what country I was born in. But growing up I still had almost an excess of parental figures. Because... I was raised, by V.I.L.E.’

She talked for a long time, and Julia listened. About the island, about her “education”, about her classmates and, well… Her family. ‘Honestly, the terrible thing is, I missed them,’ she said, a while into the story. ‘After I left. Even knowing the things they do, and how they hurt people. Not to mention realizing most of them weren’t what you’d call competent caretakers! But I _still_ missed them, because I had known them all my life. I still do, sometimes. Even Professor Maelstrom, and he’s a certified bastard!’

Julia laughed.

‘It’s true, he had the diploma hanging on the wall in his classroom!’ Carmen had gotten up from her seat at some point, and was pacing on the beach. Julia was certain that was where she was now, because she could hear the sand under her feet, and the waves in the background. ‘And you know, the worst thing was when Coach Brunt nearly killed me, I kept thinking, “Maybe this isn’t real. Maybe I’ll wake up and I’ll be back in my room, and she will knock on my door and give me piggyback rides and cupcakes, and smack anyone who so much as looks at me wrong.” But I didn’t, and I knew I was going to die – until he saved my life, that is.’

‘Shadowsan?’

‘I missed him most of all. But I couldn’t admit it to myself, because with him, it felt like the biggest betrayal. He had been getting more distant as I grew up, but I still could never forget the stories he could tell me when I was younger. How he would… dote on me when I was a kid, when he thought the other faculty weren’t paying attention. How he was really the only one, aside from _her_, who had any idea of how to behave with a child.’

‘And then you left V.I.L.E., and you thought that meant he was your enemy?’

Carmen gave a half-laugh. ‘He came running after me holding a sword. What else was I supposed to think? But once he was honest with me, I was so glad to have him back again.’ She saw the funny look on Julia’s face, and asked, ‘Too weird for you? The sword part, I mean.’

‘I have to admit it’s not exactly how I’d imagined a typical family relationship, but maybe I’m the one that needs to loosen up.’ She grinned to show that she did not mean it negatively. ‘I may not be his biggest fan, but he matters to you, so that matters to me.’

Carmen looked unspeakably relieved, and opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted. In the background, Julia could hear distant voices. ‘- Carm? Hey, Carmen! You’ll miss dinner, delivery guy already came and went!’

‘It’s Zack and Ivy,’ said Carmen. ‘I’ll talk to you later?’

‘Yeah,’ said Julia. Before she could debate whether she should end on ‘Love you’ or not, Ivy appeared over Carmen’s shoulder.

‘Hey, it’s Jules! Hi Jules! Zack, come say hi!’

A second ginger head rose like a moon behind Carmen. ‘What’s up, Agent! We missed you in Dubai!’

‘I was in Toronto,’ Julia managed to say before the siblings were at it again. Carmen was almost-squeezed between them as they both attempted to be on camera at the same time.

Ivy won out for a moment. ‘Come help us out next week, we’ll be in –‘

‘_Ivy_, ‘ Carmen reprimanded her as she pushed back into frame. ‘You know we have to be careful about that kind of information.’

‘Sorry!’

Zack had given up on squeezing into frame, and could just be seen over Carmen’s shoulder, hollering at someone out of frame. ‘Hey, Shadowsan! Come over and say hi to your future daughter-in-law!’

‘Oh my god.’ Carmen muttered, and hid her face in her hand. ‘Guys, I’ll be there in a _minute_, now, say goodbye to Jules and give me a moment.’ She didn’t raise her voice, but the mix of big-sister tone and actual-boss demand was enough to catch the duo’s attention.

‘Sorry – byyyyye, Jules!’

‘Bye, Agent!’

Then they disappeared off-screen. Carmen pinched the bridge of her nose, then said, ‘Sorry about that.’

‘Not at all.’ Julia found herself blinking in the light of the screen. ‘You, er, told them about us?’

‘Oh –‘ Carmen put her hand down. ‘Yes. Is that, is that okay?’

‘Yes – I’m glad, actually.’

The look on Carmen’s face was a mixture of embarrassment and happiness and just a bit of love-struckness. ‘Okay. Cool.’ She avoided Julia’s gaze, unable to fix the smile on her face. ‘I’ll call you later. Or you call me.’

‘Yep, talk to you soon.’

The screen went dark. Julia only lasted a moment before she had to bury her face in her pillow and squeal for a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A nice, cozy chapter, isn't it? It would be a shame, wouldn't it, if something were to... 
> 
> Happen.


	9. The Thief Who Came In From The Cold Caper, pt. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything goes wrong in Stockholm. Julia should have seen it coming, really – they seem to have a bad track record with snowy places.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )

Everything goes wrong in Stockholm. Julia should have seen it coming, really – they seem to have a bad track record with snowy places.

‘Something’s wrong.’ Julia put her hand to her comms, and leaned to look out the windscreen anxiously.

‘What?’ Chase jerked awake in the driver’s seat, then shivered and pulled his coat tighter across his shoulders.

‘The channel is silent – the team claimed to be on Carmen Sandiego’s tail just minutes ago, but they’ve stopped updating us.’

Chase made a dissatisfied sound. Julia knew he was equally frustrated that they were being sidelined for this mission. Evidently, the Chief saw their tendency to run into Carmen without apprehending her as evidence that they were not up to the job. Since they had not heard of any activity that could be connected to V.I.L.E. this time around, A.C.M.E. was focusing entirely on the thief in scarlet. And the two of them were relegated to perimeter watch.

At least being sidelined like this had given Julia the opportunity to secretly message Carmen that she was likely being followed. She was reasonably sure Carmen could easily outrun twenty A.C.M.E. agents without help, but she did not want to leave these things to chance.

‘When did you hear from them last?’

‘They were near the clocktower, but Agent Zari has not reported in since then –‘

Suddenly, a large shadow passed overhead, moving too fast and too close to belong to a cloud. Both of them glanced up to see what it was, and thus lost their shit at very nearly the same time.

‘There she is!’

‘_La femme rouge!’_

Without a word between the two of them, Chase turned the key in the ignition, and hightailed it after the glider moving far overhead. Julia would have discouraged him from it, but the way the glider was listing and jerking in the air had her too worried to do so.

‘She’s gaining altitude!’

‘Hah! No way she is outrunning us,’ muttered Chase, gunning the petrol, and taking a reckless left turn so they wouldn’t lose the glider. ‘Or out_flying_ us, I guess. Whatever. Hang on, why is she flying like that?’ The glider kept wobbling as it flew, occasionally nosediving before being jerked back upwards.

‘Something’s wrong,’ said Julia, her heart dropping down and, it felt like, all the way through the asphalt.

‘You keep saying that! It’s making me nervous!’

‘The glider doesn’t look damaged – maybe she’s injured? And, damnit, Agent Zari still isn’t reporting back!’ She ineffectually pressed the button to hail the agent on her communication device. Why didn’t Carmen land the glider? She looked like she might crash at any moment! She had to know that she was putting herself in danger by flying this far in this kind of weather! The wind was picking up, and snow had began tumbling out of the grey sky. On the dashboard, the thermometer dropped another 3 degrees as they drove further from the city.

They were at the city limits by now, and the glider did not seem about to land. ‘She’s crossing the river!’

‘Then we follow her!’

‘Devineaux, take the _bridge_! Don’t drive into the river, for god’s sake!’

‘Oh, right.’

On the other side of the river, there’s a tall pine forest that soon proved a challenge. Chase growled in frustration. ‘We’ve lost her!’

‘The forest is too thick,’ said Julia, trying as hard as she could not to panic, even though she could already hear the panic in her own voice. ‘How are we supposed to follow her like this?! It’s – it’s hopeless!’

The car came to a screeching halt with a jolt that made her lurch forward in her seat, seatbelt digging into her shoulder. Chase turned to her in his seat with an expectant look on his face.

She stared back at him bewildered. ‘What?’

‘Well, go on.’ He gestured with his head. ‘What trajectory do you think the glider took?’

‘I – I don’t know!’

He dismissed this with a scoff. ‘Listen, if anyone is clever enough to figure it out on the fly, it’s you. Come one, Agent Argent, we don’t have all day.’ The words sounded dismissive, but his tone was so full of certainty – certainty in _her, _that it was impossible to ignore.

Julia tried to breathe. Then she pulled up the GPS route they‘d taken from the city to where they were now on her phone, and overlaid the airborne route of the glider. Then she stepped out of the car, and made her best guess about wind direction. And then she made an awful lot of half-certain calculations about the glider‘s trajectory based on its weight and the fact that Carmen did not appear to have been steering it as much as letting it steer her. Then she got back in the car, and pointed. ‘That way.’

Devineaux gunned it straight into the forest, the four-wheel drive jeep and snow tires proving entirely justified. Julia decided in that moment to always bow to local advice when it came to the weather conditions, no matter how exaggerated they sounded.

‘Try to stay on some sort of trail, it’s too thick for us to drive through unless you want to crash into a tree.’ Julia kept an eye on their GPS, which was far better than what Google Maps had to offer. It let them avoid driving off a cliff they would have missed otherwise, and to keep pretty much on course when the thick forest threatened to lead them away from their trail. Julia wanted nothing more than to try to get in touch with Player to see if he knew anything. But she couldn’t, not with Devineaux right next to her.

She still felt like she was driving without a map – figuratively speaking. There was no guarantee her estimations were correct, and even then, the sun was going down, and if Carmen crashed, they might pass a mere dozen meters by her and never know. She could feel the cold sweat on her neck, even though the AC in the car was roaring heat in her face.

They stopped a few times to recalibrate, and Julia stopped trying the comms. Minutes became half an hour, then an hour. She didn’t think Agent Zari was failing to answer anymore, but rather that the distance meant that they were out of range. Frankly, she’d rather not have all of A.C.M.E. right on their heels if they _did _happen to find Carmen, as it would make it more difficult for her to escape afterwards. But if it meant life or death, she thought she would rather have Carmen in A.C.M.E.’s hands than seriously injured, or frozen to death.

On the dashboard, the thermometer showed a negative five degrees celcius.

‘Turn the headlights up, it’s getting too dark to see…’

‘How many settings does this thing have?’ Chase muttered to himself as he turned the headlights up, then up, and then _up _again. It was then that he craned forward in his seat. ‘Hey, is that red I see?’

Julia nearly threw herself out of the car, but instead pulled out the binoculars in the glove compartment, and aimed them in the direction he’d pointed. Torn red canvas was just visible on the edge of a snowdrift. ‘Yes. Go there.’

When they reached the edge of the snowdrift, they found it a steep climb down into a hollow of trees. Torn red canvas and a tangle of twisted metal decorated the drift. Julia knew, in a distant kind of way, that her terror was too great, and that it had put her on auto-pilot. She wouldn’t be any use if she lost to it now, even with all the horrors painting themselves across the front of her brain, and so she mechanically got out of the car, and walked to the edge of the drift and looked around for –

-for a motionless shape wrapped in red tarp at the roots of a tall tree. She could only just make out red hair.

She didn’t realize she’d started forward until Chase grabbed her shoulder. ‘There’s rope in the car,’ he said. ‘There’s no use going down there if we can’t get up again.’ The fact that _he _was being the voice of reason was what snapped her out of it well enough to take his advice.

So they tied the rope to the front tire of the car, then abseiled down the steep incline until they were on even enough ground that Julia could bolt towards Carmen. She stumbled to her knees and pulled off her gloves so that she could check Carmen’s pulse. Her skin was upsettingly cold, and her eyes were closed. There were bruises on her face, too, and on her neck, and…

‘Why the _hell _aren’t you wearing a coat, you complete idiot!’ Julia growled, pressing her thumb against the pulse point and _willing _herself to feel any beat at all. ‘Do you think being a master thief makes you impervious to cold? Oh, I am going to chew you out _so _bad when you wake up!’

‘…now, what kind of incentive do you call that, Jules?’ Said Carmen, and opened her eyes, barely.

‘Carmen!’ She didn’t shake her, even though she wanted to. She probably had broken bones from the crash, possibly a concussion, and patients suffering potentially severe hypothermia should not be jolted or moved too much. ‘What are you doing all the way out here?’

‘Wanted to take the scenic route… Sweden’s lovely this time of year, haven’t you heard..?’ Carmen tried to laugh, then winced. ‘Ow.’

Julia turned, and began to say, ‘Agent Devineaux, get the-‘ Only to see Chase unpack an enormous first aid kit from the boot of the car. ‘Thanks.’ She accepted an aluminum first aid blanket and wrapped it around Carmen. Carmen’s skin was so cold that it was as if she wasn’t producing any body heat of her own, and she worried the blanket wouldn’t do much good. But preventing further heat loss was critical, especially since she risked going into cardiac arrest if her internal temperature dropped below 28°C.

‘We’ll have to find a way to get her to the hospital,’ Chase said. There was no question of Carmen getting up and walking, never mind _climbing _up to the car.

Julia bit her lip. ‘We shouldn’t transport her up the incline like this – god knows how many broken bones she has. But if we wait for backup –‘ She didn’t say what she knew he was thinking too, which was that their comms had started to break up when it began snowing. The same went for the signal on their phones, as amazing as they were supposed to be. Clearly, even A.C.M.E.’s best tech didn’t mean much if there simply was no cell service deep in the Swedish woods. There were their pens, of course, but somehow Julia didn’t think that bringing in a life-sized blue hologram of their boss would be especially helpful right now.

Chase tsk’d. ‘Who knows when they’ll get here. It’s not good waiting for a stretcher if the hypothermia gets her first!’

‘If it helps,’ said Carmen coughing. ‘I think my ribs are okay, although _everything _feels bruised. Not sure about my spine, but I’m hoping I just tore a muscle or sprained something. My arm is definitely broken, though.’ Her eyelids fluttered, and closed.

‘Hey!’ Julia smacked her a few times on the cheek, but very gently. ‘No going to sleep! Keep talking to me!’

‘Ow, okay, okay…’

Julia exchanged glances with Chase. Then she nodded.

They ended up tying her down on the stretcher that came with the first aid kit. It was a lightweight one that folded out into a solid backboard to prevent further injury to the patient’s spine. Never let it be said that A.C.M.E. stinted on useful gadgets. The tricky part was getting her up the slope. Julia knew patients with severe hypothermia should always be kept horizontal if possible, since letting them sit or stand up could result in ventricular fibrillation or cardiac arrest.

They settled for using the rope to pull the stretcher up the incline. Julia put Carmen in her own coat, in hope of warming her up, and splinted her arm. Chase, being the stronger of the two of them, stood at the top of the hill pulling the stretcher upwards, while Julia dug her feet into the snow, and lifted the foot-end of the stretcher as far as she could so that Carmen could be kept as horizontal as possible. It was exhausting, slippery, tricky work, not to mention unpleasant, by the way Carmen gritted her teeth. But by the strained sigh when they laid her down in the backseat of the almost painfully hot car, it was worth it for the warmth. Julia crouched down on the floor next to her, and propped Carmen’s head up on her rolled-up scarf. ‘You’re staying awake until we reach the hospital. Keep talking to me.’

‘Roger that,’ Carmen murmured, eyes hardly open. Thankfully, her clothes had only been slightly wet, since the snow was mostly dry powder, and she had covered herself with the tarp, keeping it from melting against her. Julia put her own gloves on Carmen’s cold hands, then broke up a chemical heat packet, and waited for it to get warm before she put it in Carmen’s gloved hands. Heating up someone experiencing hypothermia too fast could be dangerous, at least when it came to skin-to-skin contact.

In the driver’s seat, Chase started the car and began driving back they way they’d come. He went faster than they had on the way here, since he could follow the tire-tracks, even as they were snowed into. Carmen’s attention seemed to be wandering a lot, so Julia took it on herself to keep her talking.

‘Tell me what happened. Why did you take off, and why didn’t you land the glider earlier?’

Carmen took a breath to answer, then descended into a coughing fit, curling painfully in on herself as she hacked her lungs out, but unable to do so properly, tied to the stretcher as she was. Julia put her arm around her to support her, and rubbed her shoulder as tried to get her breath back. Carmen tensed against what was, essentially, a hug, then carefully and with intent eased into it. When she got her breath back, she croaked, ‘Your pals left me a message, when they’d been chasing me for a while. They said they wanted to talk. At the same time, Ivy disappeared, and we couldn’t get in touch with her. She’d been masquerading as me to distract them, and I thought they had her, so I decided to meet up with A.C.M.E. in the clock tower.’ She fell silent for a while, catching her breath.

‘When I got up there, the agent I spoke to said she didn’t know what I was talking about when I accused her of capturing Ivy. I wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth, so I tried to keep her talking. But then she got the jump on me, and brought in backup. I ran, but she got me with one of those gas guns, and I fell off the clock tower.’ She took a deep, measured breath when it seemed she might start coughing again, before finishing. ‘I was able to deploy my glider, but I was so out of it from the gas, I didn’t know where I was going.’

Julia stared unseeing ahead of her. How had she ever thought it was a good idea to try to recruit Carmen? When A.C.M.E.’s priorities are so skewed as to focus exclusively on apprehending criminals – instead of getting an idea for the situation and where the real harm was taking place, where the _real _crimes were. That it had them going in shooting first and asking questions later -

‘Jules.’

Her gaze snapped up to Carmen’s face. Carmen grinned the smallest grin. ‘You seemed far away,’ she said.

Julia tried to find her words, but simply couldn’t. She let go of Carmen’s shoulder like she’d scalded herself. Before she could pull her hands away completely, Carmen caught them, and held them gently. She managed an imitation of her normal roguish grin that was nearly as good as the real thing, and said, ‘I was impressed you managed to get me up that slope earlier. Have you been working out?’

‘Yes, actually,’ said Julia dully, trying to keep a lid on all of the fear and panic and relief and anger and love that threatened to boil out of her.

‘Nice.’ Carmen’s thumb rubbed slow circles on the back of Julia’s hand. ‘I gotta say, this isn’t how I’d imagined falling asleep with you for the first time.’

Julia laughed, and hid the tears running down her face by putting her face against Carmen’s borrowed jacket. It felt like they were completely alone together in the world, her and Carmen in the back seat of a rocking car, with the AC scorching the back of Julia’s neck, and a gloved but warming hand in hers. Therefore, she got an awful shock when Carmen reminded her this was not in fact the case, and spoke up enough to be heard by their driver. ‘This must be your lucky day, Agent Devineaux. You’ve finally got me.’

‘As if I ever doubted I would,’ replied Chase bombastically. ‘This is your final caper, Carmen Sandiego, and I for one can’t _wait _to see you in front of the International Criminal Court.’ He paused. ‘After we’ve taken you to the hospital, anyway.’

In the back seat, the two of them exchanged a glance. Carmen, amazingly enough, was grinning. ‘Surely the nearest police station is closer?’

Julia sent her look as if to say, _don’t push your luck_. Devineaux only scoffed. ‘Puh-_lease_. You are going to have to be _alive _to stand trial. I can put off the second best day of my life for a while yet.’

‘_Second _best?’ Carmen sounded almost put-out at being demoted from her status as his top priority nemesis.

‘It would have been number one, but Marc took me out on a real nice date last week,’ said Chase, without even a shred of embarrassment or self-consciousness.

‘Well, I can’t even begrudge him that one,’ muttered Carmen. ‘That’s just too stinking cute…’

They made it to the hospital half an hour later, and Carmen was slipping away rapidly by then. Her consciousness had been scattered entirely by the end and she kept muttering under her breath scattered lines Julia could only barely make out. What she understood worried her, and what she didn’t worried her more.

‘Knew… there was… no dollar…’

And,

‘Why… Argentina?’

And,

‘Damn…clown…bastard…’

And,

‘Grey…. ‘m sor’y…’

And,

‘Why… why did you leave me there..?’

While Chase pulled up in front of the hospital and put the car in ‘idle’ to dash inside to get the paramedics, Julia sat with her, and stroked her face clumsily, and tried not to feel like the bottom was dropping out of the world. ‘_I’m_ not going to leave you,’ she whispered. ‘I promise. Doesn’t matter how far we are apart, I’ll always be on your side.’

The car door opened, and three paramedics appeared, Chase behind them. Julia jerked into ‘professional’ mode, and rattled off a complete description of the injuries they knew about, in addition to symptoms of hypothermia and other ills. The paramedics took over, and moved Carmen carefully onto a wheeled stretcher. Within seconds, she was out of Julia’s hands, and disappearing through the entrance to the hospital. Julia stood there in the parking lot, left behind, totally directionless. She didn’t realize how long she’d been staring at the door, swinging closed, until Chase put a heavy hand on her shoulder.

‘Come on,’ he said with a nod. ‘Let’s get you some coffee, ah?’

It would be a long night, Julia knew, but she couldn’t let her guard down for even a moment. She had to make sure that she would not be the only one Carmen had to depend on. So as soon as Chase disappeared down the hospital corridor to get them coffee, she sat down on one of the unsettlingly comfortable Swedish hospital chairs, and made a call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> P.s. The show actually did a real good job on the technical parts of Carmen's rescue - never move a person with moderate to severe hypothermia if possible, and keep them horizontal at all times. Don't attempt to rub heat into their hands either, romantic as it may seem, because that may cause bruising and further tissue damage. In fact, Julia and Devineaux really shouldn't have moved her and ought to have waited for a rescue helicopter instead, but I gave them some technical communication problems to excuse it. I'm also assuming that they find Carmen a little sooner than in canon, and so she's not quite as far gone.


	10. The Thief Who Came In From the Cold Caper, pt.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At 6.35 in the morning, Julia was on her fifth cup of coffee, scribbling on the very last page in Chase’s notebook, and even the relatively comfortable IKEA furniture in the hospital waiting area had betrayed her.

At 6.35 in the morning, Julia was on her fifth cup of coffee, scribbling on the very last page in Chase’s notebook, and even the relatively comfortable IKEA furniture had betrayed her.

Her call on the private line normally reserved for contact between her and Carmen had been picked up by Player. She had relayed all information of Carmen’s status (in Intensive Care, but not currently in a critical condition), and her estimation of how long it would take before A.C.M.E. tried to have her moved into their custody. The two of them had agreed that it would be best to keep Carmen at the hospital as long as possible so that she could receive the care necessary to make a full recovery. But there was a narrow window between that, and when it would become difficult-to-near-impossible to retrieve her from A.C.M.E.’s custody.

Julia had also come face to face with her colleagues, specifically the ones that were to blame for this spectacular blunder. It had given her a chance to confront Agent Zari about her radio-silence.

‘You have encountered Carmen Sandiego almost a dozen times in the field by now,’ the Agent had said stiffly. ‘Either you and your partner are _both _incompetent, or you simply weren’t trying to apprehend her to begin with. We saw no reason to involve you further in the operation.’

‘And I can see that certainly does not go for _you_, Agent Zari,’ said Julia. She wondered if that had been an order from the top, or just a unilateral decision among the ground crew. ‘After all, the one and only time _you_ make such an attempt, you fail to apprehend her even with a dozen agents as backup. _And _almost kill her in the process. Well done.’ It was awfully backwards, but Julia had found that she tended to become more eloquent when she was angry, rather than less. And she was _really_ angry, now.

Agent Zari had flinched. ‘_Your _actions require explanation as well,’ she said. ‘Deserting your post like that was highly irregular!’

‘I will explain myself,’ replied Julia. ‘But not to you.’ She had turned to go, before she said something she might regret. But just then, the door to the room where their captive was being treated had opened, and Carmen was wheeled past. She was covered by a sheet, and had an oxygen mask on. Really all Julia could make out was her hair, tangled and messed up on the pillow. But what little she could see of her face looked so terribly pale.

Behind her, Agent Zari made a derisive noise. ‘Doesn’t look so impressive now, does she?’

Red mist descended. Julia felt the pent-up anger reach for her fists and leverage the long bones of her arms. She almost certainly would have turned and decked the woman if Devineaux had not picked that _exact _moment to appear from around the corner and spill coffee on the Agent’s pristine winter wear by walking into her. ‘Oh, I’m _so _sorry,’ he said while Agent Zari sputtered and berated him. ‘Let me get that for you –‘

‘Stop it! I will take care of it, you incompetent oaf!’ She had left, and Chase gave the back of her head a look that should at least have made her sneeze. Then he turned to Julia, and handed her the coffee cup he hadn’t spilled. ‘Here.’

Julia gratefully took it. ‘Did you do that on _purpose_,’ she asked suspiciously, glancing after Agent Zari’s retreating back.

‘_Eh_? Me? Why would I antagonize someone who kept us off the case? And was so rude about it, too.’ His exaggerated innocent act made Julia grin, despite everything.

That had been four hours ago. Now, he was snoring in the chair next to her, and Julia’s pen was, finally, blinking. They were in the cul-de-sac of a corridor, next to a vending machine and in front of a room picked specially so that anyone attempting to get to Carmen Sandiego had to go past at least six A.C.M.E. personnel. There were no agents in her room currently – she was still receiving medical attention her hypothermia. Julia clicked her pen, dropping it to the floor next to the vending machine so that it would be out of sight anyone in the corridor who was not too close, and the Chief appeared.

Julia nudged Chase, who still snored on the chair next to her. ‘Agent Devienaux, wake up.’

‘Let him sleep, no doubt he needs it. Actually_, you _look like you need it even more.’ The Chief’s face looked serious. But not currently accusing, although Julia did not feel convinced she was not about to be fired for some obscure reason.

‘Chief,’ she said, nodding.

‘Agent Argent. Given the circumstances, I would have expected you to report in sooner.’ Behind her, a nurse in scrubs exited Carmen’s hospital room, and was relieved by another. The nurse did not even look in her direction, appearing too tired to do much than put one foot in front of the other, and so missed the blue hologram entirely.

Julia stood up. She did not like to be sitting down for this, even though technically the Chief’s advantage in height was only imaginary. ‘I imagined you were likely busy, ma’am.’ And she had wanted to get her thoughts and emotions in order, so that she did not give herself away, or say anything too disastrous. The borrowed notebook in her hand held an account of the other A.C.M.E. operatives’ attempted capture of Carmen, told to her in full by Agent Holster. On the page after _that, _there was record of her and Chase’s actions during the mission, and their justifications for said actions. Although, most of them they had had to make up afterwards.

‘Hm. I have received reports that you and your partner left your post to chase our target, and did not report back until you had driven her to the hospital?’

‘Yes, we did.’

The Chief nodded decisively. ‘Well done.’

Julia was caught off-guard. ‘Chief?’

‘I’m not an idiot, Agent. It is obvious that Carmen Sandiego would have died, had you not found her. Not to mention she is now in our custody.’ The Chief folded her hands behind her back, and tilted her chin up. ‘I would like to know why you did not let anyone in A.C.M.E. know of your actions until after you had taken them, though.’

Julia stared fixedly over the hologram’s left shoulder. ‘Can I answer that question with a question, ma’am?’

‘Unorthodox. Very well, go ahead.’

‘You mean to take us off the investigation entirely, don’t you?’

Now it was the Chief who was blindsided. ‘What gave you that idea?’

‘Well, the fact we were sidelined on this mission, for one thing. And Agent Zari’s words, for another. You see it as a sign of incompetence or conspiracy that we had not arrested Carmen Sandiego already, despite numerous encounters with her.’ Julia was amazed she could keep her voice so level, when it felt like anxiety was rattling her ribcage like a xylophone.

The Chief gave her a level look. ‘Let’s say I was considering different tactics, given our lack of success so far.’

Julia breathed in through her nose. ‘Can I ask another question, ma’am?’

‘Fire away, Agent.’

‘What is A.C.M.E.’s purpose, as an organization?’ There was a brief moment of confusion in the Chief’s eyes. ‘Because when you first recruited us, I do not recall that purpose being to capture a single thief, but to confirm the existence of – and take down – V.I.LE.’

She had struck a nerve, she knew. ‘We did recruit you on the assumption that Carmen Sandiego was working _with_ V.I.L.E., Agent Argent.’

‘And do you still assume this to be true?’

The Chief hesitated. ‘No, as it happens. Your repeated cooperation and evidence that she seems to be working against V.I.L.E. has convinced me otherwise. As has your partner’s testimony.’

‘Agent Devineaux?’ Julia glanced down at the sleeping man in question. His mouth was hanging open, and as they both looked at him, he gave an ungodly snore. The Chief winced, but continued.

‘He has reported, after his ongoing therapy and attempts to retrieve his memories, that Carmen Sandiego was not one of his kidnappers. And, although he has shown some suspicion of this memory himself, reported that it seemes she attempted to rescue him from his actual kidnappers.’ She raised a hand when Julia opened her mouth. ‘I know you are going to ask why we are still pursuing her, Agent. And the answer is, she is still a criminal. One that likely has a lot more information than we do about V.I.L.E.’s activities. If we managed to apprehend her, that information could be crucial in finally bringing V.I.L.E. down.’

‘Be that as it may, Chief, I stand by our actions on previous missions, regardless of the fact that they did not lead to the capture of Carmen Sandiego,’ said Julia.

The Chief raised an eyebrow, but did not say anything, and Julia took that as her cue to continue.

‘Our cooperation turned out to be crucial to bring down various V.I.L.E. enterprises. The more we worked together, the more amenable she seemed to providing information that could help foil their plans.’ Well, that wasn’t _technically _a lie. ‘But I am certain that every _shred_ of trust she may have had towards us has now been squandered. And since this attempt to apprehend her nearly resulted in her dead, I cannot imagine interrogating a corpse would have been especially useful. I may be an A.C.M.E. agent now, Chief, but I draw the line at murder, even when it comes to criminals.’ Julia knew she had crossed several lines, just then, but she could not have stopped herself even if she tried. Beyond the fact that she loved Carmen (and a part of her still wanted to curl up in a ball and cry every time she thought about her almost dying in the snow) her ethical stance on this was firm regardless.

The Chief’s jaw tightened. She breathed out through her nose. ‘It may not seem that way to you, Agent, but the weapons you were issued were intended to forgo the need to use lethal force. However, agents in the field sometimes find themselves with no other choice but to do so.’ She paused, and although Julia did not know why, the next words she spoke seemed to take a lot out of her. ‘And… sometimes they believe they were making the right decision at the time, only to turn out to have been wrong. They will then have to shoulder that responsibility. Of having taken a life.’ She frowned at Julia. ‘Trusting your gut can be _lethal_, Agent.’

Around them, there were the sounds of a hospital in full operation; the scuffing of rubber-soled shoes against the linoleum; the overhead hum of florescent lights; far-off lowered voices in conversation. If you really focused, you might hear the muted beeping of life-support machinery.

The Chief sighed. ‘However, it would be an even greater shame to suffer the loss of life because of a total blunder like this one. Although the agents involved made their own mistakes, I will take responsibility for giving the order to apprehend Carmen Sandiego. Furthermore, our current intel indicates that there was in fact a V.I.L.E. operation we were not aware of, which Ms. Sandiego was involved in thwarting.’

‘Oh?’ Julia said, as if she did not already know.

‘Two Swedish V.I.L.E. operatives were apparently involved in the business of selling stolen nuclear launch codes. As far as we know, the sale was unsuccessful and the launch codes stolen by Carmen Sandiego – although I do not know how, since this theft apparently took place at the same time as she was crash landing in the forest.’

Julia did not say anything. Sometimes it was convenient, that everyone knew Carmen Sandiego could be recognized by her signature style. After all, that meant any thief in a red hat and coat could be her, couldn’t they?

‘Granted, I find the idea of her and her crew possessing the launch codes to be alarming all on its own,’ said the Chief with a tight frown. Julia managed not to laugh at that – no doubt the hard drive had already been destroyed. Team Red had absolutely no interest in causing nuclear weapons to be deployed, after all. Over the Chief’s partly see-through shoulder, she noticed a man in nurse’s scrubs walking down the corridor. His eyes briefly widened at the blue hologram by the vending machine. But after a ‘go about your business, nothing to see here’ look from Julia, he moved on without saying a thing. Instead, he entered the hospital room next to the one where Carmen was being kept

‘Do you intend to deploy agents to attempt to retrieve them?’ Julia asked.

‘It’s worth considering,’ said the Chief. ‘Although it occurs to me that we could easily attempt a trade.’

Julia’s heart beat faster. ‘Ma’am?’

‘The launch codes, for Carmen Sandiego. While she might provide us with important information, we are duty-bound to consider civilian safety first and foremost. Leaving the launch codes in the hands of a criminal would certainly count as endangering the public, don’t you think?’

Julia nodded carefully. ‘I am… glad we share the same priorities, Chief.’

The doors to the room next to Carmen’s opened again and two people in scrubs exited, pushing a wheeled hospital bed. Its occupant had had all life support removed, and a sheet covered their face. One of the nurses raised a medical chart, when one of the A.C.M.E. agents on guard further down the hallway stepped in front of them. ‘For the morgue,’ he said. The agent waved them past. Julia hurried averted her eyes.

‘When will we be moving the prisoner from this location?’ She asked the Chief.

‘Undecided, as of yet,’ said the Chief. ‘It all depends on her recovery.’ In fact, the nurse that had exited Carmen’s room at the beginning of their conversation now approached down the hallway, and Julia, after a nod from the Chief, hurriedly turned off the hologram as she passed, nodding tiredly at Julia. They had developed an odd kind of camaraderie, since Julia had been sitting in front of that same room for most of the woman’s shift. Only, a moment after she had entered the room, the nurse opened the door again, and said to Julia, ‘Sorry, did my colleague move the patient while I was away?’

‘What?’ Replied Julia.

The nurse’s name tag ID’d her as, amazingly enough, Ingrid Bergman.

‘The patient is not here,’ said the nurse patiently. ‘Did the nurse that was here before me take her away for further treatment?’

Julia rammed an elbow into Chase’s side, and he jerked awake with a, ‘_Oh no, pas le homard_!’

‘She has escaped! We have to search the room!’

Devineaux went from drowsy to fully conscious faster than you could say “_la femme rouge!_” He launched himself from his chair and through the door, past the nurse. Julia followed, and found indeed only an empty hospital bed, and not a trace of its former occupant. Looking around, she saw some medical equipment had been moved aside, revealing a door that connected to the hospital room to the left of this one. She opened it, and found another empty hospital room, but this one missing its bed. Later, when she dutifully checked the floor plan of the hospital when writing up her report, she would find that every two rooms next to each other on this floor had such a connecting door.

So she had been right – she had recognized that “nurse’s” voice, even though he had been wearing a medical mask at the time. Internally, she breathed a deep sigh of relief. Externally, she pulled out her pen again. Chase took note, and closed the door in the indignant nurse’s face, before running a hand through his already messy hair and cursing under his breath in French.

The hologram of the Chief flickered back to life. ‘Well?’ She demanded.

‘You’re not going to like it, Chief,’ said Julia.

The hologram turned around, and saw the empty hospital bed. She pinched the bridge of her nose, and sighed in a way that bordered on growling. ‘She escaped.’

‘I’m afraid so, Chief. We can send out a search party –‘

‘Don’t bother,’ said the hologram. ‘She is doubtless long gone by now. We are back to square one.’

By the hospital bed, Chase seemed to notice something, and furrowed his brow. Then he pulled the corner of what turned out to be an envelope from under the edge of the sheet. He flicked it open, and shook it out into his palm. A tiny object, one that reminded Julia of an ice crystal more than anything else, landed in his hand. Julia was prepared to be anything that it was a drive containing the now twice-stolen launch codes.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say square one,’ said Julia slowly.

The Chief turned around, and Chase held up the drive. Her eyebrows shot up. ‘_How _interesting.’ She shot a glance to Julia. ‘I applaud your instincts, Agents. It seems that despite everything, the thief has decided to extend us a gesture of goodwill.’ Her brow furrowed in curious concern. ‘Let us hope that we live up to the faith she has placed in us.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks all of you who keep reviewing every chapter as I post - I almost certainly would not have kept writing this story without your encouragement! You folks are wonderful <3


	11. The Unexpected Guest Caper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To say that Julia had not been sleeping well as of late was… an understatement. There had been a couple of missions, one in Beirut, one in California. In fact, they were just on their way back to France, now. Or rather, they were supposed to be.

To say that Julia had not been sleeping well as of late was… an understatement. There had been a couple of missions, one in Beirut, one in California. In fact, they were just on their way back to France, now. Or rather, they were supposed to be.

‘Overbooked flight. _Merde_!’ Complained Chase in the driver’s seat of the rental. ‘What good is the A.C.M.E. badge if it doesn’t solve stupid shit like this?’

Julia relaxed in the passenger’s seat, or attempted to. Their original flight had been from Los Angeles, and now they had to drive over two hours to the next airport, to take a flight from there instead tomorrow. ‘Don’t act like you don’t appreciate the discounts,’ she said, leaning back and closing her eyes. ‘You’d be knee-deep in debt thanks to all that red yarn otherwise.’

Chase merely tsk’d, and shifted lanes on the highway. Julia tried her best to nap. It wasn’t especially successful. She had barely heard from Carmen’s team at all since Stockholm, aside from periodic text updates from Player on Carmen’s condition (still recovering, and sleeping almost twenty hours a day, was the gist of most of them). She wasn’t sure even a call from Carmen herself would assuage her worries, though. Julia wasn’t having anything as dramatic as nightmares that jerked her awake at 3am. No, she just simply found herself unable to fall asleep, except out of exhaustion and only for a few hours every night. It was the kind of insomnia Chamomile tea, late night reading, heavy exercise and even Chase’s old whale song recordings failed to beat. 

She stared blankly through the windshield, wishing she could just switch herself off until she felt like she could manage the world again.

When they were about half an hour from their hotel, Chase’s phone pinged, and he checked the screen. His face lit up, and he said out loud, ‘Marc is in town! Says he wants to take me out for dinner.’ He glanced sideways at her.

‘That’s great,’ said Julia genuinely. ‘You should take the opportunity to spend time with him.’

‘You are sure?’ His concern was implied – although he did not know the cause, Julia was sure her lack of sleep was taking its toll enough by now that he must have noticed.

‘Just drop me off at the hotel. I’ll order room service or something, turn in early.’

She got out when they arrived by the hotel, and pulled her luggage from the back seat. ‘Have fun, and tell Marc I said hi.’ Personally, she never could stop thinking of him as “Mister Easy”, but that wasn’t exactly the way to refer to your partner’s boyfriend to his face, was it?

He waved a goodbye, and so did Julia in return. Then she stood on the curb, watching him drive off, but in reality not watching anything at all. She really _was _tried. Maybe if she ate enough Korean takeout she’d fall into a food coma and get more than four hours of sleep. Around her, passers-by who had to maneuver past her on the sidewalk gave her nasty looks, but they might as well have glared at a brick wall for all the good it did.

She was so distracted, she did not notice the shiny black SUV until it pulled up right next to her on the curb, and the window was rolled down. She jumped, and stared at the man in the Gucci sunglasses and dad-polo shirt in the driver’s seat.

‘Please get in, Agent Argent. The fewer people notice, the better.’

Muddled as Julia’s brain was, her first thought was, ‘_Oh hell, he’s finally come to take me out for good!_’ Once she had thought it through for more than two seconds however, this whole situation did not exactly look like a kidnapping, and she didn’t really have any reason to believe he meant her harm. Of course, he was so damn unnerving that is was difficult to help the knee-jerk reaction whether you believed that or not.

So she threw her luggage in the back, then got in the front passenger’s seat. Shadowsan pulled away from the curb, and started to drive them away from the downtown area.

‘Where are we going?’ Asked Julia after a while.

He stopped at a red light, and gave a left turn signal. ‘I thought you might want to take advantage of being in the area.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I am taking you to see Carmen.’

Julia felt her jaw drop. ‘Wait, hang on – _this_ is where your headquarters is?’

‘Indeed.’

When Julia doubled over laughing, and kept laughing until tears formed in the corner of her eyes, he didn’t even blink, which meant he got the joke completely. It was the absurd cherry on top that finally let the tension in Julia’s shoulders evaporate. Carmen Sandiego’s home really _was_ in San Diego, California.

When she finally stopped laughing, she elected to pay better attention to their surroundings. They seemed to be heading into the industrial part of town. Julia thought she might raise a concern. ‘You think it’s a good idea to let me know where your headquarters is?’

‘If something happens, we can always relocate,’ said Shadowsan. ‘But Carmen trusts you, and that is enough reason for me.’

Julia was actually rather touched by those words, but didn’t know what to say. She was saved, however, by the car pulling up in front of a warehouse. Shadowsan killed the engine, and stepped outside. Julia did the same, and shielded her eyes against the sun, mouthing along with the words as she read the sign overhead. The sign prompted a fresh bout of giggles, which Shadowsan gracefully ignored, opening the door and letting her in.

Inside, the place was clearly in the process of being renovated, the smell of sawdust and varnish hanging in the air. It was still a big open space, but walls were being installed to separate it into smaller rooms, although only the frames had been erected. There seemed to be no-one on the ground floor, but in the corner, a kitchen was in the process of being walled off, and a pot was boiling on the stove. Shadowsan “hrmph”ed, and went to turn down the heat. Julia stayed where she was, wringing her hands, looking around cautiously, not moving from the small square of tile directly in front of the door.

Shadowsan headed for the staircase to the second floor, and paused there, waiting for her. ‘She is upstairs.’

Julia hurried after him, and once on the second floor found an airy loft, where the renovation seemed to have progressed somewhat further. There was a hallway, leading to a living room with large windows, although the curtains were drawn. On either side of the hallway there were doors to other rooms, although they were all closed. There were a couple of couches and armchairs in the living room, along with a coffee table with an open laptop sitting on it.

In front of it, lying on the couch, was a shape hidden mostly under a thick blanket, but red hair splayed out on the pillow. Its owner appeared to be sleeping.

Julia hurried over, not noticing that Shadowsan stayed back by the hallway. She knelt by the couch, and took a closer look at Carmen. Her color had much improved from the last time she had seen her, and none of her injuries were obvious, currently. But she lay still, and slept, drawing deep, even breaths. Julia wanted to stroke her hair away from her face, but she also did not want to wake her up, so she settled for laying her hand on Carmen’s left palm, which lay open on the couch, uncovered by the blanket.

‘How has she been?’ She turned to ask Shadowsan, who was still standing in the doorway.

‘She has made considerable recovery,’ he said stoically. ‘However, the hypothermia has left her fatigued. She sleeps, most days. It is not any lingering injury, we made sure of that. She simply needs rest.’

He said all of this calmly. However, Julia noticed the way his hand tightened into a fist, briefly, before he seemed to will it to let go.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He met her gaze without flinching. ‘Thank _you_.’

He left, and Julia took a seat in the armchair next to the couch, and leaned her chin on one hand, eyes on the sleeping woman. She looked… smaller, like this. No, not smaller. More vulnerable. Like someone who needed protecting.

Well, everyone needed protecting sometimes, especially those who put themselves in the line of danger more frequently than the average citizen. Even extraordinarily competent thieves. It was just as well Carmen had people more than willing to do that for her. And Julia had the entire afternoon off.

* * *

Carmen awoke about an hour later. Julia was still sitting in that armchair, reading a book. Shadowsan had brought her luggage upstairs, and then he had left again. She hadn’t seen anyone else around – Zack and Ivy seemed to be out, and she assumed the same went for Player. Carmen’s awakening wasn’t especially dramatic – she simply opened her eyes, and blinked a couple of times, before sighing.

‘Good afternoon.’

Carmen blinked again, then with some effort turned her head to look up at Julia. Then she stared. ‘Oh, great. I’m dreaming again.’

‘As flattering as that is, you’re not.’ Julia smiled. ‘How do you feel?’

Carmen pushed up on one elbow. ‘It’s really you?’

‘It’s really me.’

‘Prove it.’

Julia leaned over, and pressed a kiss to her forehead, and Carmen gave a sigh when her lips touched her skin. When she pulled back, Carmen’s eyes were closed, but opened again and looked up at her. ‘What, no proper kiss?’

‘Maybe when you look less like you’re about to pass out on me.’

‘M’ not ‘bout to pass out,’ murmured Carmen, but gave up and laid back on her pillow. ‘When did you get here?’

‘Just an hour ago. Shadowsan picked me up.’

‘You should have woken me up.’

‘You need to rest.’ 

‘So everyone tells me.’ Carmen stared up at the ceiling. ‘He brought you here? Of his own volition?’

‘Yup.’

‘Wow.’ Carmen’s eyes went to the book in Julia’s lap. ‘What are you reading?’

‘Just some predictable spy thriller I picked up in the last airport we were in.’ An idea struck her. ‘Do you want me to read it to you?’

‘Could you? You’d never believe how boring it is, to be on bedrest.’

Julia moved over, and Carmen propped herself up, so that Julia could sit with her head in her lap. Then she picked up the book, and started from the beginning. Carmen did not really say anything as she read, and at some point Julia’s hand ended up in her hair, which Carmen seemed to enjoy. She kept reading for well over an hour. Eventually, Carmen’s eyes closed, and she fell back asleep. Julia still kept reading out loud in low tones for a while, but her own eyelids had started to grow heavy, and the words blurred on the page in front of her. And so, breaking a week’s streak of insomnia, Julia Argent fell asleep.

She jerked awake some unspecified amount of time later, when the book fell from her hand to the floor with a thud. In her lap, Carmen startled awake as well. Looking outside, Julia could see that the sun was starting to go down. She shifted in her seat. ‘I should probably go back to the hotel,’ she said, although she could not have fathomed anything she would have liked to do less just then.

‘Stay.’ Carmen asked her, and that was all it took. Anyway, she didn’t have any messages or missed calls on her phone. In all likelihood, Chase was staying with Mister Easy, and wouldn’t know to miss her.

After a bit of maneuvering and shuffling about, Julia laid back fully on the couch, Carmen in her arms, her head tucked underneath Julia’s chin. Within a minute, both of them were asleep again. Julia drifted awake a couple of times, once noting that someone had re-draped the blanket on top of them, and another time that her glasses had been removed, and set on the coffee table next to them.

She wasn’t sure for how long she slept, but it was dark outside when she woke up to the sound of a camera going off very close by. She opened one eye, and found Ivy, smartphone poised in one hand. Zack was leaning over her shoulder, one hand covering his mouth and an expression on his face that radiated ‘_Awww!’_

‘You know you’re going to have to delete that,’ whispered Julia. ‘Since it’s incriminating evidence.’

‘No fair,’ whispered Ivy back, but did as she asked.

‘What time is it?’ She asked hoarsely. In her arms, Carmen slept uninterrupted.

‘Don’t worry, it’s only half past ten p.m.’ Ivy told her. ‘Your flight is at seven thirty tomorrow, right? We’ll wake you up bright and early in time to get to the airport.’

‘Devineaux might notice,’ Julia protested, but weakly.

‘Psh, no way. Anyway, if he does, just tell him you were following a lead or something,’ said Zack.

‘Or had a Tinder date,’ suggested Ivy brightly. ‘He’ll _never _press you after that.’

‘_Promise_ you’ll wake me up?’ Julia asked sternly, but undermined by the fact she was already drifting off again.

‘You can leave it to us, Agent!’

And Julia Argent slept.

* * *

It was perhaps the best wake-up she had had in years. Okay, so she had a brief moment of panic before she figured out where she was, not recognizing the room or the couch she was lying on. And maybe she had an awful crick in her neck, and one of her legs has gone to sleep. And Carmen’s hair was tickling her nose, making her eyes water with the effort of holding back a sneeze. But the thing was, it was _Carmen’s _hair, and _Carmen’s _couch, and _Carmen_ pinning her leg down. Although in all honesty she would desperately like to get it unpinned sometime soon before the pins-and-needles sensation drove her mad.

It was still a wonderful way to wake up. And evidently she wasn’t the first. Carmen turned her head so that her hair was out of Julia’s face, and the urge to sneeze subsided. And they were eye to eye, both properly lucid for once.

‘Hey,’ said Carmen quietly.

‘Hey,’ replied Julia.

‘You’re still here.’

‘I’m still here.’

‘I’m glad.’ Carmen laid her head back against her chest, and breathed out. ‘Funny, my head feels clearer now. I guess it helps not waking up ever few hours from nightmares.’

Julia’s stomach clenched uncomfortably. ‘Stockholm?’

‘Oh, no. Other things, from before. I did wake up a couple of times, but then you were here, and that made it… better.’

Julia suddenly realized she’d had her arms around her girlfriend the entire night. ‘Oh – damn, I didn’t ask, did I? Is it okay?’ They had talked before about how Carmen had somewhat of a difficult time with hugs or being restrained in any way at all, since almost being crushed to death with one before. Julia hadn’t pressed her on it.

‘It’s okay,’ Carmen assured her. ‘I think I could get out of it pretty easily, even in my current… condition.’ She said the last word rather bitterly. Then she added. ‘It’s more than okay, actually.’ She raised her head again, and shimmied a little further up, so that she was face-to-face with Julia.

Julia swallowed. ‘I promised you a proper kiss, didn’t I?’

Carmen just smiled, and kissed her. It didn’t take long for them to deepen the kiss, either. They’d had a few occasions to get to know each other like this before, and as Julia had prophesized previously, Carmen took to it with the same determination and skill as anything else she tried her hand at. Or, tongue, rather…

It was sweet, with the light drifting in through the curtains, and the warmth of the blankets, and the quiet house, even if it wasn’t going anywhere. Certainly a couch in the middle of an open living room was not the place for it, regardless of whether Carmen had been healthy or not. Not that Julia had ever believed kissing had to end in sex to be worthwhile.

There was only the sound of their lips against each other, and the far-off traffic outside, and the hum of the fridge on the next floor – and then, unfortunately, the sound of someone clearing their throat.

Carmen jumped so hard she nearly fell off the couch, and by extension Julia, but Julia managed to grab hold of her before she tumbled to the floor. From the doorway, Shadowsan, _stoic as ever, _said ‘If you want to make it to the airport in time, we will need to leave soon.’

Julia nodded mutely, acutely aware of how red her face must be, never even mind the state of her hair. He nodded back, and left.

Carmen, no longer in danger of tumbling to the floor, buried her face in the couch cushions with a prolonged whine of embarrassment.

Julia sighed miserably. ‘I can’t believe your dad walked in on us…’

‘_Shutuphe’snotmydad_!’

They managed to untangle themselves, and Julia hurried to the bathroom for a change of clothes and an attempt at making herself look presentable. Not to mention give the impression she had showered at some point since yesterday – a crucial skill for any agent who has to deal with constant international flights. When she came out of the bathroom, Carmen was sitting up on the couch with the blanket over her shoulders, a bowl of cereal in front of her, talking to someone quietly on the laptop.

Shadowsan came through the door again, and picked up her packed luggage. ‘I will be in the car,’ he said, and then turned around and left without another word. Although Julia still felt some lingering embarrassment, it was nice to know that he was just like this all the time, rather than specifically because of, er, earlier.

Carmen finished her conversation, and closed the laptop, then looked up. Julia went over to say her goodbyes. ‘I doubt I’ll get the chance to visit any time soon,’ Julia said.

‘Well, I’m glad you could make it the once.’

‘Even though we’d agreed I shouldn’t know where your headquarters is?’ Asked Julia.

Carmen shrugged. ‘Shadowsan seems to have made an executive decision, so I’ll leave it to him.’ Carmen took her hands. ‘I’ll see you out there, soon.’

‘I know. And I know you want to hurry up getting back in the field, but please take the time you need to recover.’ She squeezed Carmen’s hands lightly.

Carmen’s jaw tightened. ‘V.I.L.E. – ‘

‘Hasn’t been up too anything too big lately. We’ve been able to handle it.’

Carmen looked up. ‘We?’

‘Of course – Player let me know of the mission in Beirut. We can’t have Shadowsan take care of every single one on his own, can we?’

Carmen’s mouth crinkled bitterly. ‘I’ll try to stop thinking about this like I’m easily replaceable.’

‘Of _course_ you’re not. You just don’t have to shoulder all of this by yourself.’ Julia looked at her pleadingly. ‘I don’t mean to hover, nor does anyone else. But we were awfully frightened when you disappeared off the map.’

Carmen took a deep breath, then let it go. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

Julia chuckled. ‘What, like it was your fault? Also, if even _Devineaux_ managed to stay the hospital for a whole ten days after his injury, I will be very unimpressed if you don’t outlast him.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ But there was a grin on Carmen’s face. ‘I’ll call you.’

‘And I you.’ She gave her a final kiss, then headed downstairs.

Shadowan was already in the car, Julia’s luggage in the back seat. She got into the passenger’s seat, and he pulled away from the amusingly-named warehouse. They agreed he’d drop her off in front of the hotel, since Chase had messaged her earlier that he’d come pick her up there, so they could drive to the airport.

As they drove, Shadowsan opened his mouth to speak, and Julia had a brief moment of terror she was about to get some kind of shovel talk, but he only said, ‘The hologram you spoke to at the hospital. Was that your superior, at A.C.M.E.?’

Oh yes – he did go past them when he and Ivy were breaking Carmen out. She hesitated, but could not actually see any harm in answering. ‘Yes.’

He hummed thoughtfully. ‘Do you… trust this woman?’

The question caught her off-guard. ‘I – I trust her motivations in wanting to take down V.I.L.E., yes.’ In actual truth, some of her distrust after the mess in Stockholm had been soothed after their conversation in the hospital. She did not think the Chief had intended for harm to come to Carmen, although that did not make Julia any less upset that it had.

He hummed again, but said nothing more.

‘Speaking of trust –‘ Julia hesitated. ‘How come you left the nuclear launch codes there for us to find?’

‘I heard the two of you speaking of them. I thought we could more easily make a getaway if we did not give A.C.M.E. further reason to hunt us down. And given the origin of the launch codes, it would not have been putting them in “enemy hands”, so to speak. It seemed the safest choice all around.’

She couldn’t fault his reasoning there. Since the first question had gone well enough, she braced herself, and asked the second one. ‘Why… did you go out of your way to bring me to see Carmen?’ It was obvious by now that neither Ivy nor Zack had been in on it, and Carmen hadn’t even been aware she was coming. Possibly Player had helped out – overbooked flight, huh? Oh, yes, sure it was. But it seemed to have been, as Carmen had said, an executive decision.

Shadowsan was quiet for a while, and she was beginning to think he was just going to give her the silent treatment for the rest of the car ride, when he said, ‘Last time she was injured, I could not even force myself to stay away a week, before I had to make certain she was alright. I imagined you felt much the same. But you did not know where to look, and could not do so freely without drawing the attention of your superiors. So it seemed the only course of action.’

Julia listened silently. She had known, in a superficial kind of way, that he cared about Carmen, but only now did she really understand. _Not your dad, huh?_ She thought in Carmen’s general direction. ‘Even if it meant compromising the location of your headquarters?’ She asked.

‘You had already put yourself at risk for her sake, in Sweden,’ he said. ‘I do not think you will reveal this to anyone without a reasonable cause.’ He was right, of course, but Julia had not been counting on that he would believe it.

‘It wasn’t that dangerous,’ she argued. ‘We weren’t at risk for any serious injury, even though Devineaux did almost drive into a tree a couple of times –‘

‘It risked your position as an agent,’ he said. ‘It risked the suspicion of your partner and your superiors. Even though they might have thought you a traitor, you still took that risk. You could say I empathize. So, thank you.’

‘…You don’t have to say it,’ said Julia, staring awkwardly through the windshield. She wasn’t sure if this was better, or worse, than a shovel talk.

‘If not for you, she would not be alive, so I will say it as many times as necessary. Thank you.’

He dropped her off where he had picked her up in front of the hotel the day before, and with only a nod of goodbye, drove off again. Julia only had to wait five minutes before Chase arrived in their rental, still unshaved from the night before. Likely he’d been a hurry this morning. She could sympathize.

‘How was your evening?’ She asked when she got into the passenger’s seat.

Chase cleared his throat, and his ears went a little red. ‘Great. You?’

_ Well, I did just have a remarkably emotional conversation and a less-awkward-than-expected car ride with my girlfriend’s dad – sorry, _ambiguous father figure _– who also happens have been one of the people involved in your kidnapping which left you with its fair share of mental trauma. So, a nice morning by all accounts._

‘Turned in early,’ she said. ‘Finally got some sleep.’

Chase made a noncommittal noise. ‘Good, good.’

Julia popped open the glove compartment, and handed him his A.C.M.E. issued shades, sliding on her own. ‘Back to work?’

He grinned, a little feral, and put his shades on. ‘_C’est vrai!’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will keep making fun of Shadowsan’s shades, even if they’re stylin’ as hell. As someone who frequently wears sunglasses indoors/at night due to a light sensitivity thing and look like an asshole because of it, I’m allowed.
> 
> What's worse than your dad walking in on you making out with your girlfriend on the couch? Your kid friend/brother-figure turning on the surveillance cam at the wrong time for more of the same. Don't worry, Player didn't get an eyeful, but it was a close call.


	12. The African Ice Caper; undone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They don’t see each other again until Botswana, and Julia was incredibly relieved that Carmen seemed to be back in fighting form.  
Nevertheless, she didn’t expect the first thing she saw when she parked their jeep at the site of the diamond mine to be Carmen industriously kicking the crap out of her ex classmate.
> 
> Or, Julia's lies finally catch up with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, the only way to finish a chapter is to write 'DUMBEST VERSION!' at the top and stop holding yourself to overly restrictive standards. The Leverage writers were right. Sorry about the hiatus, but I was stuck thinking this chapter had to be 'objectively good' before I released it. I'm not sure how many chapters are left - I'm guessing 3-4, but I've been wrong before. Either way, I'll definitely be finishing the story.
> 
> Also, shout out to the geniuses behind The Man From U.N.C.L.E. soundtrack. Must have listened to the whole thing through dozens of times writing this fic. One of the few modern spy movies that *gets* what makes a good spy movie.

They don't see each other again until Botswana, and Julia was incredibly relieved that Carmen seemed to be back in fighting form. Player had already tipped her off as to where their next caper would be. Julia had the feeling that him and the rest of the team had decided to involve her so that Carmen would have additional backup if necessary just as she was getting back in the field. The invitation came with the unspoken agreement that the mission would not involve other agents, aside from Devineaux. Nobody wanted to risk A.C.M.E. trying to capture Carmen again. Although, Chief had officially declared that arresting her was no longer a priority and should be foregone entirely if the choice was between apprehending her or making a move against V.I.L.E.

Julia been able to find some intel that allowed her to suggest in a innocuous way that A.C.M.E. investigate that particular Botswana diamond mine. Since her and Devineaux (let’s face it, mostly her) had a decent track record so far, they were given free rein to follow up on it. Julia couldn’t deny that she was nervous about Carmen going back into the field. But she seemed to have fully recovered the last time they video-chatted, and doubtlessly would not appreciate being coddled.

Nevertheless, Julia didn’t expect the first thing she saw when she parked their jeep at the site of the diamond mine to be Carmen industriously kicking the crap out of her ex classmate.

‘Do you think she needs help?’ Chase inquired with a raised eyebrow, as Julia hurriedly turned down the headlights so she wouldn’t draw attention to them. On the other side of the fence, Carmen stumbled when Tigress caught her in the ribs. Both agents winced. Julia opened her mouth to say that maybe they should give her a hand. This was despite her best instincts yelling at her that the last thing they wanted was to alert V.I.L.E. they were cooperating. Then, before she could say anything, two ginger blurs tackled Tigress to the ground.

‘I think they’ve got it,’ she said, and breathed easier. Then she frowned. ‘Hang on, why aren’t you yelling “_la femme rouge!_” and bolting over there?’

Chase gave a longsuffering sigh. ‘Since Chief has officially given me the order, V.I.L.E. comes first. I’ll get back to that once we’re done with them.’

‘Huh,’ said Julia.

‘What? What? I do have _some _restrainant, give me a break.’

‘I guess you must,’ said Julia. Wonders never ceased. The trio of thieves had dragged Tigress away to a tent, and Carmen stepped away from the fence, out of sight of any potential guards.

Chase grunted. ‘I’ll go look around. You go talk to her, see what information she has.’

‘_Just _recon,’ Julia reminded him. ‘Don’t draw any suspicion and don’t try to arrest anyone right away.’

‘_Yes_, grandmother.’

Chase left to circle the perimeter fence, and Julia headed in the direction Carmen had gone in. For perhaps the first time, _she _managed to sneak up on _her. _To her credit, Carmen didn’t jump when she noticed Julia out of the corner of her eye. She looked winded, though, leaning against a wilting mopane tree and catching her breath. ‘Agent,’ she said with a nod.

‘Sandiego,’ said Julia, on the assumption that the formality meant there might be someone listening.

Carmen straightened up, and glanced behind her. ‘We’re alone?’ She asked.

‘Devineaux went to check the perimeter.’

‘Hm. Knowing him, we might have to run real fast in a couple minutes.’ Then she smiled, and Julia couldn’t help but smile back foolishly.

She stepped closer, but not so close as to be incriminating. ‘Glad to see you’re back in action.’

‘Glad to _be _back,’ said Carmen. ‘Although it seems my reaction time is still a little lacking.’

‘You had backup,’ said Julia lightly.

‘Yeah. This time…’

Julia frowned, but Carmen changed the subject before she could say anything. ‘V.I.L.E.-operated illegal diamond mine. Another cash grab. I suppose Player already gave you the lowdown?’

‘Just the superficial. Do you have anything more?’

Carmen frowned. ‘It’s _much _bigger than we expected, and much bigger than their operation in Rio – we’re lucky we caught Tigress before she could sound the alarm.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Coach Brunt is here, too, as an overseer.’

Julia felt her bile rise. ‘The one who –‘

‘If your people could get her into custody, that would be a gamechanger for A.C.M.E.’s involvement in V.I.L.E.’s downfall,’ said Carmen hurriedly. ‘Faculty go into the field so rarely, at least in a way that makes it easy to apprehend them.’

‘You want us to stage a raid?’ Said Julia, completely thrown.

‘I think, given the scale of this operation and the number of operatives on site, alerting Botswana law enforcement would be the best way to put an end to it without leaving lose ends,’ said Carmen, weighing every word carefully. ‘It doesn’t have to be A.C.M.E. backup – in fact, gods help me, I’d rather it wasn’t – but I honestly don’t think I’m up to this one on my own, Jules.’ She self-consciously brought her hand to the side of her still-tender ribcage.

‘Okay,’ said Julia quietly. ‘I’ll do it. And don’t you dare look so ashamed, do you hear me? It takes a hell of a lot more strength to ask for help than not to. Especially from people you haven’t exactly had a reason to trust, lately.’

Carmen scoffed. ‘Might make me a fool, instead. But at least it makes me a fool who will still be around tomorrow, in case this caper doesn’t turn out great.’

Julia grinned. ‘Then I’m happy loving a fool.’ She hadn’t actually meant to say it, they hadn’t _said _it before, but it had been, well, Implied. Mostly through actions, that was true. I mean, cradling your girlfriend in the back of a car as she almost died of exposure had to count, right? Or risking your job and your hide to come to visit her at her hideout, for another.

Carmen opened her mouth, and nothing came out, except for a bit of stammering. She turned several interesting shades of red.

Julia tried not to laugh. ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to say it back.’

Carmen cleared her throat. ‘Right. Okay.’

‘The plan?’ Julia prompted her.

They went through it, agreeing Carmen would provide intel on the best way in and out, and focus on keeping V.I.L.E. off their track in the meantime. Not to mention keeping Tigress contained. If everything went right, the raid would go forward early the next morning.

‘I better hurry,’ said Julia. ‘I need to get in touch with our Botswana contact. Not to mention, I haven’t heard a loud scream for almost an hour. I’m worried about what Agent Devineaux could be up to.’

‘That’s fair,’ said Carmen with a grin. Then, she took a deep breath, and before Julia could react, she closed the distanced between them and hugged her. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured in her ear, and Julia felt a little shiver down her spine.

‘Not sure what for, but I’ll take it.’

‘For being there. Being you. For not thinking I’m incapable. A lot of things, I suppose.’

‘Of _course _you’re not incapable.’ Julia hugged her back, not so carefully as to make it seem Carmen was made of glass, but not so firmly that she’d squeeze her ribs too tight. ‘You’re honestly the most capable person I’ve ever met in my entire life. That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to ask for help.’

Carmen chuckled. ‘I wish I could kiss you right now.’

Julia smiled. ‘We agreed to none of that on the job.’

‘True.’ Carmen let her go. ‘Oh – one more thing.’ She reached into her kit, an produced a file. ‘You forgot this, when you stayed over.’

‘Oh my god. Is that the Canadian case file? I had no idea that was even gone!’

‘Don’t worry, I didn’t read it.’

‘Nothing in there you don’t already know.’ Julia flipped through it, and found nothing missing. It was a sparse file, frankly. A copy she’d happened to have because Chase always complained about using tablets. Not that strange a habit, come to think of it, since Interpol hadn’t even made the change over from paper files yet. ‘Thanks.’ Most people when staying over at their girlfriend’s place, she thought with chagrin, left behind clothes, or their toothbrush. Just her luck. Oh, well. No harm done.

Julia felt her skin tingle at the possibility that in just a few hours, they might get the closest they ever had to taking V.I.L.E. operatives – possibly even one of their leaders – into permanent custody. ‘It _will _work,’ she insisted, to convince herself as much as Carmen.

The smile Carmen gave her was consolation enough for any missed chance of a kiss.

‘See you at dawn, Jules.’

* * *

‘_How _could this have happened?’ Demanded Agent Makutsi, their contact at the A.C.M.E. Botswana branch. ‘How could they possibly have known we were coming?’ Agent Makutsi was a tall, thin woman with fingers that tapped on her desk constantly, as if she wished she could find work for them. Especially during frustration like this.

‘We didn’t even let it get out that this was an A.C.M.E. operation,’ Julia vented, not _to _anyone, but rather _at _herself. ‘As far as V.I.L.E. was concerned this should have simply looked like a police raid!’

‘Doesn’t matter who they thought was behind it, they still could have gotten wind of it,’ said Devineaux suspiciously, peeking through the blinds of Agent Makutsi’s office with professional-grade paranoia. ‘We must trust no-one!’

Julia, worried that the leak might have been on Carmen’s side, said nothing. Not that she thought anyone on Team Red might have tattled. Rather that V.I.L.E. had cleared out because of their presence, before they were even clued in on the raid. It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption. The villainous organization had certainly lost enough revenue already, from Carmen getting in the way of their plans. They might well have decided to cut their losses as soon as they got wind she was on the same continent, never mind in the same _country_.

Just then, Agent Zari and her partner (neither Julia nor Devineaux had ever gotten the man’s name were now afraid to ask) entered the office. They had been on an intelligence mission in South Africa and had had their flight rerouted as soon as Julia reported in to Chief to get a green light on the raid. They’d arrived a couple of hours before the raid, as backup. In the hours since it had failed, they had been on the mine site, combing it for evidence.

Agent Whatshisname pulled out his hologram-pen, and clicked it before dropping it to the floor. The Chief’s hologram flickered to life, and everyone in the room stood up straighter – except for Agent Makutsi, who rather _sat _up straighter behind her desk.

‘Report,’ demanded Chief.

Agent Zari began. ‘The operation was unsuccessful, Chief. It seems those responsible for the mining operation knew we were coming, and cleared out before we could investigate or apprehend them.’

‘Cleared out?’ The Chief asked.

‘Brought down the whole place with explosives,’ translated Agent Zari’s partner. ‘The mine has been re-buried underneath thousands of tons of rubble, and any evidence of V.I.L.E.’s specific presence destroyed.

The Chief’s mouth tightened. ‘Any clue how they knew we were coming?’

Julia said cautiously, ‘If our previous encounters with them are any indication, V.I.L.E. seems to have sleeper agents in many organizations all over the world. A mole may have warned them we were coming.’ Well, they might have. Or Tigress had escaped and warned them. Or one of her many animal-themed co-conspirators might have run across Carmen’s team and warned the rest of them. Or Chase had been spotted when he walked the perimeter. Julia herself might have tripped the alarm in some way. She hadn’t heard anything from Carmen since the mine exploded. She knew she was safe, because otherwise Player would have alerted her. But they had agreed Carmen and the siblings would clear out as soon as possible so that V.I.L.E. wouldn’t realize this was a joint operation. They had assumed as a matter of course that _some _of them would escape. They were world-class criminals; it seemed improbable they could catch all of them. But to have every single one of them escape, along with losing any chance at retrieving the stolen diamonds…

Agent Makutsi said, ‘Chief, I am prepared to vouch for those working directly under me. But you have to understand that the operation necessarily involved others on the police force. Even if it wasn’t on purpose, V.I.L.E.s intelligence network may have picked something up on the grapevine. It may not have been a leak so to speak. Rather, it had the possibility of becoming a leaking sieve at any moment, depending on how far up the chain of command V.I.L.E. has informants.’ Julia admired how calm she was. Not that she thought the situation didn’t exasperate Agent Makutsi as well. But the agent seemed completely certain in what she _did _know.

The Chief nodded grimly. Devineaux sighed, and leaned against the window sill, still glancing through the blinds ever so often.

It seem to Julia that Agent Zari and her partner glanced at each other for just a second too long just then. Then Agent Whomst said, ‘Chief, we have a hypothesis as to where… _a_ leak originated.’

Chief merely raised an eyebrow and waited.

‘As you know, all electronics were destroyed on site when the explosion happened, along with any security footage from the mine’s internal security system,’ said Agent Zari. ‘However, all of our vehicles on site had dashboard cameras, and we were able to pull some footage from them. Both from the explosion itself, and the from Agents Argent and Devineaux’s presence in the area the night before.’

‘Good work. Well?’

‘Carmen Sandiego was on site before the explosion occurred,’ began Agent Whoever.

‘As we were well aware,’ said Chief. ‘Agents Argent and Devineaux reported that she seemed to be back in action here in Botswana, and lent them assistance by providing information on the mining operation.’

‘Indeed,’ said Agent Zari. ‘However, we believe the leak may have been through her.’

‘Considering I saw her kick a V.I.L.E. operative wearing some stripey suit in the face last night, I doubt it,’ said Devineaux.

‘When did this happen?’ Asked Chief, glancing from him to Julia.

Devineaux waved a hand. ‘Arrived just in time to see her and her two ginger goons wrangle that one lady, the one that dresses like a cat for some reason. If cats were green, anyway. It couldn’t have been her that tattled, because I checked in and she was still held captive by them when the raid was underway.’

Julia breathed a little easier. So that at least put Tigress out of the picture as a leak. Then she became doubly worried, because in a way that would have been preferable. At least they would have known just who leaked the information.

‘And you were present for the raid, rather than chasing down Carmen Sandiego?’ Asked the Chief, disbelievingly.

‘Hey, I know how to prioritize!’ Devineaux was met by a round of doubtful stares from everyone in the room, except for Agent Makutsi, who didn’t know him well enough, personally or professionally, to pass judgement. He shrugged. ‘What can I say, this “cooperating” with her thing has worked pretty okay so far. I figured I could go back to arresting her once the mines were over with.’

‘Hm,’ the Chief conceded. ‘Anyway, carry on, Agent Zari, Agent,’ Julia saw her hesitate on his name. ‘_Agents, _I mean.’ She coughed. Apparently they weren’t the only ones who couldn’t remember the man’s name.

‘As far as the rest of us are concerned,’ said Agent Zari, not looking at either Julia or Devineaux, ‘This… cooperation, with Sandiego has been unorthodox, but successful. However, it was our impression that it did not involve sharing classified A.C.M.E. intel with her. Correct me if I am wrong.’

‘You are not,’ said Chief, raising an eyebrow. ‘However, I warn you that you are making a grave accusation, if you do so without evidence.’

‘We have evidence.’ Agent Qui? walked over to Agent Makutsi’s desk, and, after a nod of permission from her, inserted a data key in her computer. After a couple of tries, because no-one has ever inserted a USB the right way around the first time – and _then_ a couple minutes of cursing and clicking, because pulling up the right file and getting it to play _also _never went as smoothly as it was supposed to – he had almost completely killed the dramatic tension.

It returned, however, when the video played. ‘This was pulled from the dashboard cam of Agents Argent and Devineaux’s car,’ said Agent Zari. The grainy footage had been zoomed in on the far right corner. It showed Julia, and standing in front of her, Carmen Sandiego. Although by itself, this would not have been too incriminating, Julia felt her stomach drop through the floor, and the cold sweat gather on her back, because she _remembered what happened next._

There was no audio, so the gathered agents watched in silence, as the two figures spoke without a word to be heard. Thank goodness for that small mercy, thought Julia, since it would absolutely have been the end for her, had they known what the two of them had talked about. The camera was to her back, at an angle, so that her face was mostly obscured, although Carmen’s was visible. A second later, the Carmen on screen pulled Julia into a hug.

All eyes turned to Julia. She cleared her throat, thankful for how surprised she had been at the time, and that it showed in how late she was in returning the hug. ‘She expressed thanks, for her rescue in Sweden. She told me she had been certain she was going to die. It rather took me aback, to be honest.’ Well, it had. Carmen wasn’t much of a hugger.

‘Touching, no doubt, but not what we meant to focus on,’ said Agent Zari. She nodded towards the screen. Carmen had let video-Julia go, and spoke for a few seconds, before reaching into her kit, and pulling out a file. A horribly, horribly distinctive file. A file Julia had used as a bookmark in that mediocre airport thriller she’d read to Carmen in California. A file with a big, unmistakable A.C.M.E. logo across the front.

It didn’t matter that Carmen hadn’t read it. It didn’t matter that she already had all the information it contained herself, and more. Hell, it didn’t even matter that this didn’t really prove anything related to their current problem regarding the mine raid. Because A.C.M.E. was a _secret _organization, and that meant you were _not _supposed to let people who were not_ in _said secret organization anywhere _near _it’s secret documentation. Especially when it had a big red stamp on it that said ‘CLASSIFIED’!

It was dead-quiet in the office for a few, gut-churning seconds.

‘**What** is the meaning of this, Agent?’ Said Chief. ‘Do. Not. Tell me that you have been sharing classified information not just with a civilian, but with a known criminal!’

Julia opened her mouth to reply – and finally realized that she was in too deep. She should have realized it ages ago, but it was hard to get perspective when you were in the middle of it happening. Capers and espionage and secret deals and swordfights, oh my. She would be lying if she said she _hadn’t _shared classified intelligence with Carmen, because she _had_. That file just wasn’t an example. What was she supposed to say? “_Oh, sorry, I forgot I had left classified materials at my girlfriend’s house. But that’s okay because she didn’t need to read it, because I already told her everything that was in it. Oh, and also, said girlfriend is the criminal we officially have a very tenuous relationship with!_” Lie? But the lies were starting to not add up! Telling another one could be the lie that brought down this whole castle in the sky, the one that finally exposed how completely she had betrayed A.C.M.E. Okay, so she had her reasons, but so did everyone. What would she say in front of a judge and jury? “_I thought I was doing the right thing, your honor._” “_Oh, did you? Do you know how many times a day I hear that one?_”

If she made it as far as an official trial. What did organizations like A.C.M.E. _do _to traitors? Was it was simple as suspension or imprisonment, or was it something far more discrete, something more terminal?

And she couldn’t tell them she had officially ‘recruited’ Carmen, on the slim chance that might have saved her. Carmen hadn’t raised the matter again, but Julia knew that she wasn’t keen on joining A.C.M.E. in an official capacity before what happened in Sweden. And she found it astronomically unlikely that her opinion had improved since then. Even if she _had _done just that, that still didn’t excuse handing over confidential documents.

And it was probably not helping at _all _that she had stood there with her mouth open now for several solid seconds, with the Chief looking ready to burst, and with Agent Zari looking grave. Julia realized just then that she wasn’t accusing her out of any kind of malice. No, she was just doing her job – and damn, she was _good _at it! From where Agent Zari and pretty much anyone else was sitting, Julia _was _a traitor, and a danger to A.C.M.E.’s entire existence. It was disheartening that even if she got the chance to explain herself, it was extremely unlikely that anyone would see things from her point of view.

‘_Comment cela?_’ It was Devineaux’s voice, from the direction of the window. Julia couldn’t bring herself to turn to him. He sounded honestly confused.

‘What we mean, Agent Devineaux,’ said Agent Hvem?, ‘Is that it seems your partner has been handing over classified information to what we could only call a tenuous ally, at best. Whether this resulted in the mine raid being leaked to V.I.L.E. this morning is uncertain, but it means that A.C.M.E. intelligence has become compromised.’

‘Why?’ He asked blankly.

‘Well, her motives are currently only known to herself –‘

Devineaux cut him off. ‘No, I mean why do you think that?’

‘Agent, we have it on tape, right here,’ said Agent Zari. ‘Loyal to your partner or not, your own eyes won’t deceive you.’ She sounded pitying.

‘No you don’t.’ It was strange – he didn’t sound worried in the slightest. Julia risked a look at him. He just gazed back at Zari in honest bafflement. Although to be fair that was an expression that he wore quite a lot anyway.

‘Good god, man, it’s _right there_,’ said Chief, on the verge of losing her temper.

‘Is it?’ Said Devineaux. ‘Tell me, do you have the video of Agent Argent giving _la femme rouge _the file?’

‘No, but I can hardly see why that matters in the circumstances –‘ Began Agent Zari.

Devineaux gave them all a blank look. ‘Then what makes you think she handed it over in the first place?’ This time it was _their _turn to stare at him blankly, so he elaborated. ‘Carmen Sandiego is a _thief. _She _stole _that file.’ He said this as if it was the most self-apparent thing in the entire world. ‘_It’s what she does_.’

‘Then why would she hand it back over? And if that is the case, should we even be working with someone who we cannot fully trust?’ Demanded Agent Zari. From her desk, Agent Makutsi was watching with interest. Julia got the distinct impression that she was enjoying this in a detached sort of way. Most A.C.M.E. agents didn’t actually get to see a lot of intrigue, hence why most of them were part of regular law enforcement. Agent Makutsi was probably relieved it wasn’t one of her own people who was being accused of betrayal. Julia focused on this, because she could not think too hard about her current situation without wanting to bolt out of the room, which would _definitely _look suspicious.

Devineaux shrugged. ‘Well? We know she does this. She already stole my ID in Deli, do you forget?’ He tsked. ‘I don’t like it, but cooperating with her has been,’ he made a face, ‘An overall advantage. If the lamb is going to sleep with the lion, it’s got to accept that it will occasionally have a bite taken out of it.’ He shrugged again.

‘Lie with, Devineaux, it’s “lie with”.’ Said Julia, resisting the urge to hide her face in her hands and valiantly resisting the blush that was trying to encroach on her ears.

‘Oh, that, too.’

Chief listened without a word, and then turned to Julia. ‘Well, Agent Argent?’

Julia sighed deeply, and prepared herself for another huge lie. ‘She got it from our car somehow, Chief.’ She tried to sound defeated and ashamed, which to tell the truth wasn’t difficult at all. ‘She said she wanted to get up-to-date on the operations she had missed out on while she was inactive. It was the file about the mission in Canada.’ That much was true, at least.

‘And why did you not say so sooner?’

‘Anything I said was going to sound like an excuse, wasn’t it?’ Said Julia. She gestured to the freeze-framed footage on the screen. ‘Even I can’t deny that looks very incriminating. And even then, I made a serious mistake, leaving it somewhere where she could get her hands on it.’ Never mind that everyone knew Carmen Sandiego could break into Fort Knox before breakfast and still have time left over for a bagel. A mere locked car wouldn’t even have slowed her down.

‘And is this something she has done before?’

‘She hasn’t made a habit of it, but I can’t say I was especially surprised. I was just glad it wasn’t a especially important confidential information.’ She was _amazed _she was keeping her cool throughout all of this. It was like she was watching herself from the outside, the calm part of her keeping the charade going while the hysterical part was locked away.

‘I will be the judge of that,’ said Chief. ‘Be that as it may, either way this is not necessarily evidence that Sandiego leaked information of the raid. Intentionally or not.’ Julia kept silent, certain that was not the end of it. The Chief went on, ‘However, while it means the raid likely was not leaked through her, it his _is_ evidence that Sandiego has had some access to confidential A.C.M.E. information through you, even if you did not willingly provide it.’

Chase snorted. ‘As if she needs it. Her intelligence network is clearly much better than ours, since she is always ten steps ahead of us anyway.’

‘_Thank _you for your contribution, Agent Devineaux,’ said Chief sharply. She breathed out through her nose. ‘While I often find myself exasperated by your methods, Agent Devineaux, no-one could accuse you of being Carmen Sandiego’s biggest fan. In this case, I will count you as an unbiased party. If only because you are so biased in the case of both Carmen Sandiego _and _Agent Argent that it cancels out.’ She turned to face the whole room, hands clasped behind her back. ‘This incident needs to be investigated. Whether it has anything to do with matters discussed here today remains to be seen. But for the moment, you are both stood down,’ she said with a nod towards Chase and Julia. ‘Not suspended,’ she added. ‘But removed from active duty for a couple weeks.’

Chase made a noise of despair, but not surprise. Julia merely said a subdued ‘Yes, Chief.’

The two of them left the office without saying anything. They walked past the desks of the officers who were trying to follow up leads on the mine explosion, to make sure it wouldn’t cause collapse or sinkholes in the area and be a danger to civilians. It all seemed far more useful and helpful than anything they had accomplished since arriving. Much more so than tracking a faceless criminal empire that they could only catch the merest whispers of.

They walked outside into the parking lot, where it was getting dark, and thankfully a little cooler than it had been during the day. Instead of getting in the car, though, Chase leaned back against the hood, crossed his arms, and sighed. Julia stood a few paces away, shoulders slumped. She didn’t know what to say, but she knew where would be a good start.

‘I’m sorry.’

He tsked. ‘It was bound to happen sooner or later. I don’t know how Chief expects us to cooperate without a little give and take.’

‘She was right, though,’ said Julia. ‘I’ve compromised A.C.M.E.’ Although not now, it had probably happened a dozen times before, every time they crossed paths with Carmen.

‘It was already compromised as soon as they got a hold of my ID,’ he said. ‘Stop being so hard on yourself. If I make huge mistakes every mission and still don’t end up getting fired, I figure you’re allowed a few slip-ups.’

Although he was trying to lift her spirits, Julia felt them get lower, if anything. She really didn’t deserve any of this from him. She had been lying to him ever since Denmark – earlier, even, if she counted the time she failed to tell him about running into Carmen in an elevator in Poitiers. The two of them might have had a rocky start as partners, but he’d had her back so many times when she least expected it. Granted, she had lied because she’d been certain neither he nor anyone else at A.C.M.E. would have been thrilled about the idea of cooperating with someone they thought was their enemy. Especially when Julia had not really had the evidence to back up her hunch at the time. _Especially_ because Chase had believed Carmen had been one of the people who kidnapped him and left him with some pretty traumatic amnesia.

But even more significant than any rationality had been the fact that she had not really liked him much back then. He was an arrogant loudmouth who had talked down to her and downplayed her contribution because she was fresh out of the academy. Really, the first two things remained true, although he’d started taking her seriously as an agent and as a partner. She’d just spent enough time around him that she’d found the redeeming side of those flaws. He had certainty you could bend a steel bar around, that much was true. But not just in himself. Her, too, these days. He had come around to utterly trusting her and having faith in her abilities. And damn it if she didn’t envy him of his certainty sometimes, especially now.

Somehow they had stumbled into becoming friends, and it hurt that she was lying to him about so many things, that she didn’t even know where to begin to undo it.

She decided not to blurt anything out now. Likely she’d just do more damage than if she gave some forethought about what to say. Instead she leaned against the hood of the car next to him, and stared up into the night sky. Not that they could see many stars, with the streetlights above them, but it was something to do. ‘I guess that’s it for us.’ She would have to find a way to be useful to Team Red in some way while she was benched, but it would prove difficult. She’d be very surprised if Chief didn’t have someone keep an eye on her during the investigation. ‘Might as well catch a flight back to Poitiers.’

There was a moment’s silence. ‘We might.’ Said Devineaux. ‘Or we could take a little vacation.’

‘A vacation?’

His frown slowly turned into a horribly familiar grin. ‘A little place in the Caribbean. You’ll love it.’

* * *

‘Okay…’ Julia leaned back in the armchair in their hotel room. ‘So run this by me again. You think you’ve figured out where V.I.L.E.’s hideout is?’

‘The shipping manifests don’t lie!’ Chase tapped emphatically at the tangle of red yarn and paperwork that made up the south wall of the hotel room, with a piece of un-buttered toast in his hand. It was part of their meager, 8pm dinner. A few crumbs fell to the floor.

‘Right,’ said Julia slowly. ‘Why not take that information to Chief, though? That would get you back on the investigation in a shot.’

But Chase shook his head. ‘I already brought it up with her. She did not take me seriously. Said even if I was right, it would take a long time to plan the infiltration of the actual headquarters of V.I.L.E.’

‘I mean, she _is _right,’ Julia pointed out. ‘And if we take off to the Caribbean without telling them when we’re supposed to be off active duty, surely they will stop us!’

‘Aha!’ Chase waved a finger in the air, nearly hurling his toast towards the ceiling. ‘That is where we have our _advantage_! I did not yet tell her _where _I thought V.I.L.E. was hiding out!’

Julia furrowed her brow. ‘Even if she didn’t believe you, it seems like a major oversight that she didn’t follow up on it.’

Chase waggled a hand in the air. ‘I… _may _have called her up at, say, 3am her time. And woke her up. She may, or… may not remember the whole thing.’

‘Well, that would explain it, alright.’ Julia leaned her elbows on her knees and her chin on her knuckles. ‘And you think we should go… by ourselves… to the hideout of the largest, most dangerous criminal organization in the world. While we are supposed to be stood down, and being investigated by our agency for possible treachery and corruption.’

‘_Ah, bon_, you were paying attention.’

She opened her mouth to ask how he intended to get there, then closed it again. Such practical concern would not even register with Chase Devineaux – he would _swim _to the island if necessary. And besides, there were easier ways to go about it.

She really shouldn’t go with him. She should let the Chief know, or Carmen, and leave the information to them. Of course, Carmen knew where V.I.L.E.’s headquarters were, although she hadn’t revealed it to Julia. She’d been raised there, after all. She could likely confirm whether his suspicions were correct, although it wasn’t certain that she _would. _But if she didn’t go with him, he’d go by himself. And even if he was wrong, he could get himself into no end of trouble going there. And the much, much scarier prospect was that he would be right.

‘Alright, but even if we know where V.I.L.E.’s headquarters is, what would we do when we got there?’ She asked, trying in vain to talk some sense into him.

‘Infiltrate!’ He said. ‘Sneak into the place, learn what we can, sneak out and maybe on the way find that _américaine _wrestler type woman who put that memory extraction machine on me and whack her with a chair –‘

‘Stop, right there,’ said Julia with a sigh and held up a hand. It really didn’t help the whole “unhinged” look, that his tie was half undone and his hair a mess. ‘You _know _that’s not any kind of plan, don’t you? And I hesitate to even bring this up, but how are we going to get there?’

‘Oh, that one’s easy,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Marc will get us there.’

‘Okay,’ said Julia with an even deeper sigh. ‘So, your richer-than-god sugar daddy boyfriend can probably get us there on his, his _yacht_ or whatever-‘

‘He is _not _my –‘ Chase protested. Then he relented. ‘Alright, maybe a little bit.’

‘- that _still _means we’re walking into a den of thieves! _Without _a plan!’

‘So?’ Chase raised an eyebrow, _enviably _unfussed. ‘That’s why you’re here, _d’accord_?’

Julia cursed every single decision that had brought her here, but not for long. ‘At least give me a few days to work it out, alright?’

She couldn’t really blame Carmen for being reckless at times like these. Feeling useless was no picnic. So did that make her the pot, she wondered, or the kettle?

Julia was not aware that at that same moment, on a train speeding far away, Carmen was having one of the worst days of her life. If she had known, possibly some of what later transpired could have been avoided. Then again, maybe not. Causality is tricky like that, sometimes. But at the very least it would have kept a lot of people from making a lot of questionable decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now I can FINALLY share the single exchange that lead to this entire fic being written.
> 
> Me: Okay, but in this AU the biggest obstacle to Carmen and Julia dating is Devineaux, right?  
Me: Can't have a relationship if your partner is bursting into the room all the time yelling 'la femme rouge!' at your girlfriend and trying to arrest her  
T: He needs a distraction  
T: Give him a boyfriend  
T: Or a sugar daddy  
T: A SUGAR DADDY BOYFRIEND!!  
Me:  
Me:  
Me: It's perfect
> 
> EDIT: Agent Makutsi is based on Grace Makutsi from the book/tv series Ladies' No.1 Detective Agency.


End file.
